


Extra Credit

by jkl_401



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Alternate Universe - High School, Angst, Fluff, M/M, Pining, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Slow Burn, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2019-03-14 19:54:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13597191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jkl_401/pseuds/jkl_401
Summary: Baekhyun wants a stress-free life on the lead up to their exams, and not having the added responsibility of tutoring someone else. Kyungsoo would rather do anything but study. Yet the pair of them find themselves in a situation neither of them wanted.





	Extra Credit

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aaru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aaru/gifts).



> This fic was inspired by my amazingly talented and lovely friend, Aaru's fan art!  
> Which is right here, for your viewing pleasure --> https://twitter.com/aaru_bd/status/961053242942742530  
> Please give her a lot of love because I am always blown away by her work (so much so I have to create a fic around it, she's incredible)  
> So I hope everyone enjoys this fic and her gorgeous artwork!

Sometimes Baekhyun wondered why he were friends with the likes of Jongdae. He was such a slacker and an annoying pain in the ass. It never helped when Baekhyun was trying to do his best, and Jongdae was attempting to distract him by hissing in his ear about some girls boobs he could see from his vantage point.

“I swear she’s had them done, no girl in this _country_ has tits like that!” They were in the equivalent to a study hall for their final exams. The exams weren’t for another couple of months but Baekhyun had insisted they go to every available study session they could, just so they were prepared. Given, Jongdae was a good enough friend to agree to keep him company, but Baekhyun kind of wished he’d just leave him to it sometimes. Especially if he was going to be so disruptive.

“Baekhyun! Look at them!” Jongdae whisper-shouted as to not be too obnoxious. It wasn’t having the desired effect, since another girl within earshot huffed angrily and purposefully in their direction. Baekhyun snorted.

“Jongdae, stop trying to get me to look at her boobs.” Baekhyun actually whispered back to him, refocusing on his text book. He was trying to read the necessary literature that came with their English class requirements, something Jongdae had been actively avoiding for weeks now.

“I just need to know I’m not going crazy here! _They_ are not real, I need a second opinion… for… science.” Jongdae pouted, clearly put out that Baekhyun wasn’t playing ball today. Of course, usually he’d be right in the mix, making jokes and actually checking out if some eighteen year old girl had spent her parents money on extra cleavage. Today, he wanted to get a head start on his exam reading so he wasn’t left floundering when crunch time came. That, aside from the fact he really _wasn’t_ interested.

Sighing as though looking at this girls boobs was a chore, Baekhyun glanced at the girl in question. Yeah, she’d definitely had something done to her chest area, either augmentation or she had a lot of socks stuffed down her blouse, either way it looked very peculiar.

“I think you’re right, they don’t look natural.” Baekhyun agreed, turning back to his book and now tapping his pen a little harder, his agitation was beginning to show already, although no one would ever guess.

“Thank you!” Jongdae said far too loudly taking the time to throw his arms in the air and slouch back on his seat, attracting even more disgruntled looks from his classmates.

“Now will you do the reading? If you do it now you won’t have to do it later.” Baekhyun reasoned, but as per usual when it came to education talk it went in one ear and out of the other. He watched as Jongdae became the physical embodiment of the phrase _‘I don’t wanna’_.

“Studying is boring,” Jongdae whined as he opened his book, defeated by Baekhyun’s stare. For all he may complain, Jongdae didn’t want to fail his High School education. He was just the type of person to want to move and spend his energy playing around physically than exercise his brain.

Baekhyun had a pre-existing condition of not being able to hold himself still, sitting for too long hurt his butt, and regardless of his level of concentration he always found a part of his body moving. Whether that be his leg bouncing restlessly, or him playing with the leather strap around his wrist or doing something else with his hands.

The pair of them were taking Hapkido to burn their excess energy and learn some discipline, though it was definitely working on Baekhyun more than it was for Jongdae. It wasn’t that he was adverse to school and learning really, Jongdae was a naturally gifted individual with a photographic memory and had a lot less work to do than Baekhyun did, in terms of remembering what was required to pass the exams.

Therefore, studying the way Baekhyun needed to was almost a complete waste of his time. He had the added stress of being a teenager going through puberty, so clearly a girls breasts were far more interesting for him than reading about context when speaking in English.

Which wasn’t unusual for a boy of their age. However, Baekhyun had always known something wasn’t the same in him as it was in Jongdae, as he found himself mostly distracted by strong thighs or shoulders, rather than soft breasts and shapely hips.

Thankfully for Baekhyun, those things weren’t on constant display so he didn’t have half the problems that Jongdae had when it came to keeping himself under control.

He hadn’t divulged that information to either of his closest friends though, because he did _like_ girls, but his attraction compared to Jongdae’s, or even Chanyeol’s was pitiful. He just didn’t feel much different when he had his first kiss with a girl a couple of years ago, but he hadn’t thought too hard about it.

It was only a very recent revelation to himself, when they had that new music teacher the previous year, that something else had his full attention. Baekhyun couldn’t help but notice the man had the most perfect backside he had ever laid eyes upon in real life. It was always an awkward situation whenever he’d come to hear Baekhyun sing in class, as his voice would crack and he had trouble holding his notes. Baekhyun had pondered for weeks over why he felt like he felt like he was naked and exposed whenever the man so much as looked at him. It wasn’t until he had the most powerful wet dream about his perfect teeth and strong jaw that Baekhyun figured he might not be entirely straight.

However, it seemed like Jongdae’s libido was flying off in all directions at any given time of the day. Baekhyun did feel bad for him, and every other guy who was faced with girls ever shortening hem lines, and their development into women. He was glad he didn’t have the same problem, since it seemed entirely too distracting, but it wasn’t always easy keeping his preference a secret.

Regardless, Baekhyun had a lot of focusing to do for his upcoming exams, he was on track to get into his first choice university, and nothing was going to stand in his way, nothing except the damn tests he had to take in order to get in. He was going to Seoul National University to study Human Biology. He’d already received an unconditional offer, he had to get top grades in his Math, Sciences and English Language in order to be entered onto the course.

Of course if that all fell through, Baekhyun had a back up plan, but he had the idea that his father probably wouldn’t be as pleased with it.

Baekhyun knew that his dad wasn’t really like the ones from the cliché’s, he was a pretty cool and easy-going guy who just wanted the best for his sons. Baekhyun was just prone to over-worrying in situations even though he knew his dad well enough to know he’d be supportive no matter what. Baekbeom, of course, was doing well in University already and was well on the way to big success. Baekhyun was on track for good grades too, but there was always the niggling feeling that he would disappoint either of his parents if he told them he just wanted to drop everything and be a singer.

His mother would worry, of course, she listened to all the horror stories about the newly debuted singers and what crazy stuff they have to deal with. Realistically, both parents would be fine with whatever he chose, but he didn’t want to take the chance and watch the swell of disappointment bloom on their faces. They had given him a lot, the least he could do was try and get a good start in life. Baekhyun did love Biology, it was his favourite class next to music so he knew he’d be happy in either field of work. He could probably just sing as a hobby anyway.

Jongdae always told him that his dad was _‘so much cooler than my dad’_ that he’d probably take him to the auditions himself and cheer him on from the sidelines. Baekhyun always clicked his tongue and argued back with _‘well it wont guarantee me stability’_ and they’d drop the conversation.

“Baekhyun, can’t we just go and spy on the girls locker room?” Jongdae whined again, dramatically draping himself over half the table and his books. Baekhyun levelled a blank look at him. “God, you’re so boring today,” he huffed with disappointment.

“You know I’d love to raise hell with you Jongdae, but I unfortunately have to study,” Baekhyun replied flipping the page with purpose. Jongdae grunted and said something incoherent that sounded a lot like _‘You used to be cool’_ which Baekhyun chose to ignore.

“Whaddup peeps.” Greeted another classmate that Baekhyun and Jongdae associated themselves with. Chanyeol plopped himself down in the only available space he could find, which was right on top of Baekhyun’s open textbook.

“Thanks for parking your lanky ass all over my notes.” Baekhyun threw out sarcastically, but through a grin to show him he didn’t really mean it.

“I know when you’re in the,” he held up his fingers to make air quotes, “‘studying mood’ that you won’t respond to reason. This is where you’re having trouble, Jongdae.” He turned to Jongdae’s cheerless form on the table. To which Jongdae replied by pulling his tongue at him without lifting his head.

“What reason am I not responding to now?” Baekhyun asked with a smirk in place as he made to refold his shirt sleeves back up his arms, since they’d come a little loose, bouncing his right leg unconsciously. Chanyeol grinned back in reply.

“A party my friend.” He announced joyfully, “This Friday,” Jongdae immediately perked up from his spot on the table, it was almost like he was given the green light to let his private parts guide him around from now until the end of time. It was something that never failed to spark his interest.

“Ooh a party!” He said enthusiastically, practically bouncing in his chair.

“Yes Jongdae, a place for you to get your dick wet. Christ, this guy is _insatiable_ amirite?” Chanyeol was acting very strangely, he didn’t usually use the tween lingo that was popular with their classmates. Baekhyun narrowed his eyes at him and leaned back on the hard chair he was sat on, not buying the act at all.

“What aren’t you telling us, Chanyeol?” Baekhyun asked in a measured tone. His lanky friend grinned more sheepishly this time and scratched awkwardly at the back of his neck. He definitely looked a lot clammier than he usually did, which was saying something.

“Alright you got me, stop with the third degree! It’s at- _Junmyeon’shousepleasedon’thateme._ ” Chanyeol’s words tumbled out of his mouth so quickly Baekhyun nearly didn’t hear him properly.

“What? Why would I hate you? I don’t have a problem with Junmyeon…?”

“Well… he wasn’t going to agree to it unless I promised him something.” Chanyeol began to fidget, which was something he always did when he was nervous, which meant it was something neither of them were going to like.

“Oh Chanyeol, you didn’t suck him off did you?” Jongdae asked, horrified.

“What? No, God Jongdae get your head out of the gutter will you. What the hell?” Chanyeol grimaced, “No… I had to promise him something else.” He slid his eyes remorsefully back to Baekhyun.

He sighed heavily, he knew what the look Chanyeol was giving him meant. It meant that he’d promised that _Baekhyun_ would do something for him, and it wasn’t good.

“What did you say I’d do?” He felt strained already.

“Now remember, this is a well-needed blow out for all the Senior students… a very stressful time is upon us and Junmyeon’s parents are never in the city so he’s always got a free house, and its huge. I mean gi- _normous-_ ” Chanyeol rambled, gesturing wildly with both of his hands.

“What,” Baekhyun interrupted his friend, finally out of patience, “did you promise him?”

“I said you’d join his tutoring program.” Chanyeol uttered in a small voice, shying away as if Baekhyun might start hurling projectiles at any moment. Baekhyun had feared he’d promised him something like that.

“Chanyeol!” Baekhyun chided. Junmyeon had been asking him for ages if he wanted to join the _‘Tutor’s Guild’_ that he’d started once he became Student Body President. It was his initiative to get the older students to help the other, less-abled students or younger students pass their exams for extra credit.

Baekhyun didn’t need the extra credit he had enough already, and what Junmyeon, good as his intentions were, didn’t realise was that everyone in their final year needed to use that time to study and pass their own exams.

“I’m sorry Baek, he said he had one guy who is hopeless at Biology and you’re the best in our year at it.” Jongdae was now poking Chanyeol in the knee just to annoy him and the taller boy was trying to swat his hand away without outright smacking him.

No matter how mental Chanyeol’s ideas were, Baekhyun always found a way around the problem. Although, right now he really didn’t know how to get out of this one. Junmyeon was very persistent and he’d been asking Baekhyun _all_ over last Summer if he would consider joining. He wasn’t sure why, Baekhyun had never really been a role model in terms of academic achievement, but Junmyeon seemed dead set on having him on his team. Maybe it was down to the fact Baekhyun could barely hold his water and needed to ask a zillion questions before he accepted anything a teacher told him. Most teachers didn’t mind, but most of them found him annoying.

He _tried_ not to boarder on disruptive, only asking questions that were relevant to the topic at hand, but his real charm was the way he managed to get everyone in the room to listen to the banter between him and said teacher.

“Hopeless?” Baekhyun repeated almost forlornly. “You think I have the _time to teach a hopeless student?_ ”

“Hopeless was the wrong word… he’s not behind in everything… Bio isn’t his strongest subject, or something. I hear he’s quite smart.” Chanyeol had successfully captured the finger Jongdae was using to poke him and was now trying to bend it backwards in punishment.

“Open with that next time man, come on.” Baekhyun felt like repeatedly slamming his head against the desk. The end of the year was fairly soon, he’d only have time to tutor _one_ student, and that’s what he would tell Junmyeon. It wouldn’t be so bad, especially if all he had to do was give him his biology notes.

“Will you do it?” Chanyeol asked dropping Jongdae’s hand, the hopeful note in his voice paired with the puppy-dog eyes the pair of them were now sporting was really making it hard for him to be angry.

“I have no choice do I?” Baekhyun conceded, now folding his arms across his chest to reiterate that he was still unhappy about the arrangement.

“Not if you love me.”

“You’re the worst.”

***

Baekhyun arrived at Junmyeon’s house about an hour too early. Luckily, it wasn’t just by happenstance that he did, he actually wanted to go through some things with his classmate before he really committed to the job, to lay out some ground rules. Junmyeon was by far the most handsome boy in the school, which is why he was such a hit with absolutely everyone; but he did know a thing or two about getting stuff done, and he was extremely ambitious.

Basically, he was the perfect President. So Baekhyun didn’t _disagree_ with Junmyeon’s vision to have a better learning environment, but maybe not at his expense. Baekhyun, was after all, a student himself and a teenager! He needed his free time too.

“Junmyeon!” Baekhyun greeted brightly, carrying a large crate of Cola in his arms. His mother strictly forbade him from bringing alcohol but it didn’t mean he couldn’t contribute with the mixers.

“Baekhyun, you’re so early!” Junmyeon said with an equal amount of vigour as he moved to let Baekhyun waddle in with his crate. “Here let me help you.” Together, he and Junmyeon hauled the heavy box of sodas to his grand kitchen and placed them on the pearly white counter top. 

Not only was Junmyeon smart and good-looking, but his parents were so rich it was unreal. If Baekhyun could pick his crushes, he sometimes wished he had one on Junmyeon.

“I came early to help you set up, and to talk about what Chanyeol promised you.” Baekhyun said casually, leaning against the pristine counter top and drumming his fingers against the cupboard. Junmyeon looked a little sheepish at the fact.

“I didn’t mean it to sound like such a blackmail, I really just wanted him to talk to you about it.” Junmyeon told him, “Do you want a drink?” He moved to grab a glass from the huge cupboard housing about thirty different styles of crystal wine glasses.

“No thanks, I’m good for now…” He declined politely, “You know Chanyeol though, information gets lost in his brain and when he recalls it, its different.” Baekhyun laughed, but inside he was burning a small fire of rage for his friend. He couldn’t have just said _‘Oh he wants you to talk to him’_ but on the other hand, Junmyeon was very persistent in asking if Baekhyun had any free time whenever he could. If it was just one student, who wouldn’t take up much of his time, then he could take one for the team.

“That’s true,” Junmyeon agreed with a nod, now leaning against the counter next to him, “so you’d consider it?”

“Yeah, about that.” Baekhyun began, watching the unsure and disappointed look form on Junmyeon’s face, “Chanyeol said you had a student in mind for me? I don’t mind taking on whoever that is, but I can’t afford to take on any more really.” 

“Oh! Yeah, I appreciate it’s a really stressful time. I just know you have the top grades in Biology above everyone in our year, even me!” Junmyeon smiled flashing his perfect pearly whites, “The guy who needs tutoring is just behind in Bio, his teacher asked me to try and get him some help. He said he was okay with everything _but_ Bio when I talked to him about it, so…” He trailed off looking hopeful.

Baekhyun couldn’t have asked for a better set up, well having no one to tutor would have been better, but this was a preferred situation since he had to commit. He smiled politely at Junmyeon.

“That’s fine, I’m sure he’ll be telling me about stem cells in no time.” 

“With you as a tutor? For sure.” Junmyeon beamed.

“So… is it someone I know?” Baekhyun inquired, trying to be nonchalant about it but he couldn’t deny he was very curious about who it could be. Baekhyun was a smart guy, but most of the time he wasn’t that observant with the people around him, the ones that weren’t close to him anyway. It was something he was trying to work on, but his head was so full of numbers and quotes and data he just didn’t have time to pay much attention to everyone else.

“It’s Do Kyungsoo.” Junmyeon answered, opening the crate of sodas and throwing a few in his enormous fridge. Baekhyun rolled the name over in his head a couple of times, trying to put the name to a face, but he was coming up short.

“Do Kyungsoo…?” He repeated vaguely, still having trouble placing him. The name might have sounded familiar but he couldn’t be entirely sure. He started playing with the strands of hair that were falling into his eyes.

“I’m not sure if he’s coming tonight. I did text him about it.” Junmyeon told him, still with his back to him as he tried to make room for more cans. Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea, getting to know the guy before he actually committed to tutoring him, generally teenage boys weren’t usually _in the mood_ to spend their time studying as opposed to getting their end away.

Baekhyun really hoped this Do Kyungsoo character wasn’t more interested in girls than he was trying to pass his exams, at least not on a scale Baekhyun found it difficult to work with.

Less than an hour later saw a lot of people from their year turn up out of apparently nowhere. Chanyeol and Jongdae both arrived with dates, and weirdly enough Jongdae turned to with that girl he was chiding for having breast implants. However, he looked like Christmas had come early with her dangling off his arm. Baekhyun supposed he was trying to get lucky tonight, and with someone who had low enough self esteem to actually get fake boobs, he may just have a very simple time getting her pants off.

Chanyeol, in true form, had come laden with spirits and beer. Thankfully he had vodka, which Baekhyun had taken quite a liking to recently after trying it, a couple of months ago at Minseok’s birthday party. Since Minseok was older, he never had any trouble getting hold of alcohol for them. Baekhyun vaguely wondered who Chanyeol’s supplier was, before he decided he didn’t really care as long as he got a little drunk.

Chanyeol’s date was such a talker, Baekhyun had found himself trapped _twice_ in the kitchen talking to her about the upcoming exams. Which would have been fine, but she was a hideous lightweight and Baekhyun was 99% sure she was drinking non-alcoholic beer, but her eyes were droopy as though she’d spent the last half an hour downing vodka shots. 

“I mean, you’re smart, you don’t have to worry!” She exclaimed so loudly Baekhyun barely resisted the urge to cover his ears, “But us not so smart people… well we’re fucked.” The last part of her sentence was slurred, much to Baekhyun’s confusion. Thankfully, Chanyeol had rolled in to save him from his date.

“Jiyeon, Baekhyun has had enough school-talk. It’s a party, you should come with me and check out Junmyeon’s… closet.” Chanyeol smirked cheekily in Baekhyun’s direction.

“Huh?”

“Come with me,” Chanyeol steered her by the shoulders in the direction of the nearest closet, throwing a wink at Baekhyun over his shoulder as he went. He snorted into his drink as his friend led his date away. His friends were really too much, they couldn’t keep it in their pants long enough to just focus on what was important.

Having been left alone, as Jongdae had disappeared into the deep chasm that was his dates breast implants and hadn’t resurfaced for quite a while, Baekhyun refilled his drink. He was on his third vodka and coke, watering down the alcohol a little more since his head was feeling light.

Most of their year were here buzzing around excitedly as the end of their education was upon them. Since the Summer was fast approaching the light from the setting sun was casting orange shadows across the rolling hills down into the city beneath him, Junmyeon was so lucky to live in such a gorgeous house. Which, even to Baekhyun’s alcohol addled mind was such a weird thought to have.

He took a few deep breaths of the fresh air, which seemed to accentuate that he was getting progressively more drunk. Though a sense of calmness took over and he couldn’t help but let go of the stress he was going to be under, even for a night.

Baekhyun had taken residence up on one of the big comfortable-looking garden swings, and before he’d even realised what was happening, he was being shaken awake by a tipsy-looking Junmyeon.

“Baekhyun,” He was whisper-shouting for some reason, it looked very dark, “If you want to stay you’ll have to sleep inside or bugs will bite you or something.” He was slurring. Groaning at his muscles, as he’d slept in a weird position, Baekhyun took a look around.

It was really dark, and far too quiet. Had he missed the whole party?

“Is it over?” Baekhyun asked, stretching his arms high above his head. Junmyeon was nodding sleepily.

“It’s not even 2am. How lame am I?”

“You’re not lame,” Baekhyun reassured feeling a little hollow, he got up to follow Junmyeon into his house there was litter everywhere in the garden, “Did they go home?”

“I think they went somewhere else to party.” Junmyeon yawned, “Do you want me to call you a taxi?” Baekhyun was frowning at that information, he checked out the passed-out bodies on Junmyeon’s sofa as he passed; Jongdae and Chanyeol were nowhere to be found. Some friends.

“Yeah, thanks Junmyeon.”

“No problem.”

***

The weekend provided Baekhyun with plenty of time to plan out his tutoring sessions with Do Kyungsoo. Junmyeon had texted him his number and said to let him know dates, times and or venues for their studying sessions, but Baekhyun was disappointed he didn’t get to meet him first. It would have really helped him if he knew just what Kyungsoo was struggling with, so he could tailor the work to his needs, Baekhyun was nothing, if not thorough with any type of task no matter how much he didn’t want to do it.

He sighed, rearranging the leather cord that decorated his left wrist idly.

He wondered what he should do, he had some studying to do today but he could at least text this guy and introduce himself? Maybe it was lame but Baekhyun didn’t like to go into anything unprepared. He picked up his phone and measured the weight in his hands for a few moments, flipping it over and back again whilst he made his final decision.

After a moment of inner panic at texting a random stranger, he drafted out a text:

 _Hi this is Byun Baekhyun from Class 1B, Kim Junmyeon gave me your number to arrange a study session. So I guess get back to me with whenever you’re free._  
That sounded okay, he didn’t know the guy and at least he wouldn’t be freaked out by a stranger texting him. He hoped to God that this would be the easiest tutoring job, he really did not need more stress in his life right now.

It was early evening by the time Baekhyun received a reply from Kyungsoo. He’d just finished going over his Math notes from a few weeks previous, when his phone lit up and nearly buzzed right off the table.

 _Hi, yeah he told me. Any time is fine I guess._

Baekhyun reread the message a few times, that was… short. He didn’t really know what he’d been expecting but he maybe thought this guy could offer a little more than just a breezy _'whatever'_ text. Shaking his head, he tried to pay it no mind, replying that they should meet in the courtyard at lunch on Monday. Baekhyun figured this guy was one of few words and didn’t imagine the conversation would last too long.

Closing his books for the day, he stretched out on his chair like a cat. He’d have to plan _something_ for Kyungsoo to do when they did finally meet, but that could wait until he was done gorging himself on Bulgogi.

*** 

Monday morning saw Baekhyun observing his surroundings much more than usual. He didn’t know why he was doing it, he had no idea what Do Kyungsoo even looked like so he wouldn’t even know him from Adam. Yet, he couldn’t help but glance at every face that passed him on his way to his classroom.

He managed to get to his desired room and seat just fine. Settling himself down because he was always a bit early for class, he twisted his fingers together on his desk top as he waited. It wasn’t long until he was alerted to his friends presence even before he’d sat down, and when their eyes met, his face went dark. Jongdae hunched his shoulders in, what Baekhyun could only imagine was remorse, as he made his way over.

“Hey,” He said in a small voice, taking his usual seat next to Baekhyun.

“Hey,” Baekhyun replied curtly, now choosing to cross his arms tightly across his chest, playing with his lips by sucking them in a puffing them out. Jongdae gulped and had the decency to look guilty.

“You hate me, don’t you?”

“Now why would I hate you?”

“The party…”

“Oh! The party!” Baekhyun clapped his hands together for dramatic effect, “Yes the party you and Chanyeol left me to number one,” He held one finger up, “Sleep through, and number two,” He held up a second, “Ditched me to motorboat some girls breast implants whilst Chanyeol got his jollies in Junmyeon’s closet!”

“I know, that was a dick move,” Jongdae conceded, “But at least no one drew on your face!” His attempt to draw Baekhyun to the silver lining of the situation fell flat.

“Oh well thank the Gods for that.” Baekhyun remarked sarcastically. He regretted the way the words left his mouth as soon as he’d said them and slumped forwards, uncrossing his arms as he did. “Sorry, it’s just that… I woke up and the party was over.”

“I’m sorry, it was really shitty and I know it…” Jongdae apologised but Baekhyun waved him off and shook his head, he wasn’t really that mad at him. Well, not any more.

“You were busy with… whats-her-name, big tits.” Baekhyun even made the gesture of holding two watermelons in front of his chest for Jongdae’s amusement. Though, instead of the uproarious laughter he expected, Jongdae groaned and leaned forward to lay his forehead on the table.

“Fake boobies are _not_ nice man.” He moaned into the wood of his desk.

Baekhyun clicked his tongue, “I could have told you that.”

“It wouldn’t have stopped me.” Jongdae lay his head to the side so he Baekhyun could hear him better.

“Hence why I didn’t waste my time.” Baekhyun said airily, waving a hand in front of him.

“It sounds like Chanyeol had an equally as awkward time with Jiyeon,” Jongdae informed him finally sitting up from his desk and resting his head in one hand, Baekhyun cocked an eyebrow.

“Really? How come?” Baekhyun had move in closer to hear Jongdae, as the room was getting progressively noisier as more students filed in. The noise level rose rapidly as those who hadn’t seen each other since the weekend began greeting each other loudly, scraping chairs across the linoleum and thudding their heavy book bags on to solid desks.

“I heard a rumour she threw up on him.” He whispered conspiratorially. 

“Ouch.” Baekhyun grimaced and Jongdae shared his sentiments. He had to laugh though, if that girl thought her non-alcoholic beer was the cause of her problems, she was more than likely very wrong. Poor Chanyeol.

“Yeah, he hasn’t said anything to me about it though, so don’t mention it.” Jongdae sat back as people began to move in between their desks to find their own. 

“I won’t, but if he walks in here anything less than a cocky bastard then we know its true,” Not more than a few moments later, they saw Chanyeol skulk in, looking a lot more downtrodden than usual. Jongdae flashed a tiny smirk at Baekhyun indicating that what he’d heard was in fact true, Baekhyun just raised his eyebrows in amusement.

“Hey buddy,” Jongdae greeted, as he sat down behind Baekhyun. Chanyeol sported a similar look to the one Jongdae was wearing when he sat down earlier, though Baekhyun was feeling a fraction of the anger he had been feeling before.

“Hey… did Jongdae already talk to you?” Chanyeol hauled his bag onto the desk to search for the right books they needed for their first class. Baekhyun turned in his seat so he could look up at him.

“About the party?”

“Yeah…” Chanyeol looked uncomfortable and Baekhyun fought to keep the indifferent look plastered to his face.

“Yes he did.” Chanyeol inhaled, bracing himself for death-by-angry-Baekhyun, “You’re both jerks but I’m not so mad about it anymore.” He turned back to face the front of the room but he heard Chanyeol’s relieved sigh.

“Oh thank god.” Baekhyun side-eyed Jongdae with a little smirk; who then had to cover his snort with a cough so Chanyeol wouldn’t get suspicious.

“Oh,” Jongdae recovered quickly, “did you talk to Junmyeon about who you’re going to tutor?”

“Yeah, I’m meeting him later.” Baekhyun informed them, “I’ll tell you all about it when I do.”

“You best had.” Chanyeol chimed in with a laugh.

“Shut up. Traitor.” 

***

Baekhyun had agreed to meet Kyungsoo in the courtyard by the old statue at 12:30, he’d left his class as soon as the bell rang so he could get into position and get a good vantage point on all the entries. Again, he didn’t know why he’d need to do that since he did not know Kyungsoo’s face from anyone else’s, and that’s where they’d planned to meet anyway.

As more students were making their way out of their classes to stretch their legs or grab food, Baekhyun was still fruitlessly trying to crane his neck into a good position in case someone looked a little lost.

It didn’t take as long as he thought before someone was tapping him on the shoulder. He turned abruptly to greet, who he could only imagine was Do Kyungsoo. His hair looked dark, though the way the sunlight caught it, Baekhyun could see it reflecting some red tones. Long enough to flop into his round, dark eyes behind thick circular rimmed glasses, he pushed a hand through his hair to move it out of the way. He had some of the thickest lips Baekhyun had seen on a boy, which he was now playing with nervously.

He blinked for a second too long, he wasn’t sure why he was caught so unawares since he’d been waiting for him to show up, he guessed he just didn’t expect Kyungsoo to look like he did. He was kind of expecting someone who looked a little rougher around the edges.

Baekhyun looked more like a renegade than this guy, with his shirt sleeves rolled back to the elbow and his tie hanging a little loosely around his neck, the against-school-regulations leather cord wrapped around his wrist, and not to mention Baekhyun liked to style his hair out of his eyes. Compared to him, Kyungsoo was positively normal.

“Byun Baekhyun?” The boy asked, holding himself a little awkwardly in case Baekhyun wasn’t who he was looking for.

“Yes,” Baekhyun replied a little too loudly, startling even himself, “Yes, you’re Do Kyungsoo?” He offered the other a smile, to be met with a very minuscule tilt of his lips. Was he shy?

“That’s me,” Kyungsoo said.

“Great, erm…” Baekhyun was a loss for words for some reason, Kyungsoo was regarding him with incredibly wide eyes it caught Baekhyun off guard once more, so much so he’d lost his train of thought, or even the reason they were there.

“Tutoring?” Kyungsoo prompted.

“Yeah, yes. Erm, so obviously we shouldn’t do it here, but I guess… are you free tonight or tomorrow night? We could meet after school…” As Baekhyun spoke, it looked more and more like Kyungsoo was growing bored of the conversation. Baekhyun’s mouth went dry, he wasn’t boring… no one had ever looked at him as though he were, either.

“After school I guess,” Kyungsoo shrugged, hiking his backpack up a little higher onto his shoulder. He was dressed, as normally as any other student should be, he didn’t look rebellious or overly abnormal. It was still throwing Baekhyun off.

“Oh cool, is today good for you?” 

Kyungsoo shrugged once more, “Yeah, why not.”

“Awesome, should we meet up in the study hall? I know they’re running it after school every day until the exams…” Baekhyun suggested, trailing off in case Kyungsoo had any other preference, though Baekhyun could have sworn he narrowed his eyes a fraction before he shrugged lazily _again_.

“Whatever you want,” 

“Right, okay well meet me later on then. Study Hall A?”

“Okay, see you then.” And without any further prompting, Kyungsoo turned on his heel and walked resolutely away from Baekhyun, as if staying in his company was too much to bear.

Baekhyun watched him disappear into the crowd of students that was now swarming around him, feeling weird to say the least. He remembered himself after a couple of minutes and made his way to join his friends in the lunch room. He couldn’t help but feel that their encounter was off, why had Kyungsoo been so… abrupt? He mulled it over in his mind the whole journey from the courtyard to his destination, and the confusion was apparently vivid on his face when he joined his friends to eat. 

“What’s up with you?” Chanyeol asked through a mouthful of rice, Baekhyun grimaced even harder.

“I just met the kid Junmyeon wants me to tutor.” Baekhyun replied taking the seat opposite Chanyeol, next to Jongdae who was also filling his face with as much food as he could fit in there as well. He vaguely wondered if the pair of them were starved at home with how much they managed to consume at lunch times.

“Oh? What’s the verdict?” Chanyeol had finally swallowed his food and was now acting like a civilised human being. Baekhyun’s leg was bouncing, and his fingers were busy playing with the leather cord wrapped around his wrist.

“He seemed a little off?”

“Who is it?” Jongdae had also decided to act with a little more manners.

“Do Kyungsoo,” The look that graced both of his friends faces was a little alarming to say the least, a tiny bit of panic struck Baekhyun in the heart. Was Do Kyungsoo bad news? He didn’t _look_ like a bad kid, in fact he looked harmless.

“ _Do Kyungsoo_?” Chanyeol spluttered and then whistled.

“What?” Baekhyun urged, interested to know what they knew about him. Maybe their knowledge could answer some of Baekhyun’s questions.

“Isn’t he the scary one?” Jongdae addressed Chanyeol, rather than Baekhyun. He nodded vigorously and Jongdae pulled a pained face but offered no more information as he carried on with his meal. Baekhyun’s curiosity went into overdrive.“Who _is_ he? I’d never heard of him before Junmyeon told me his name.” Baekhyun said, the thought that the statement wasn’t entirely true flickered across his brain for a moment, but he couldn’t dwell on it as Jongdae was almost choking on his food.

“For serious?” He spluttered after clearing his throat, “Jesus Baekhyun you really don’t pay attention.”

“What?” Baekhyun frowned.

“He’s in our class, he sits at the back snarling at everyone! Like this…” Chanyeol explained, launching himself into an, what Baekhyun could only imagine as exaggerated, impression of the boy; leaning forwards so that his eyebrows were heavy across his eyes and made him look like some sort of demon.

“No he isn’t,” Baekhyun dismissed immediately, though he was feeling the hot flush of embarrassment start to crawl up his neck to the tips of his ears, “I’d have remembered him.” He added in an undertone.

“He is definitely in our class. Check it out when we go back, he lurks in the shadows.” Chanyeol said, waving his hands in an attempt to be mysterious. Both of them laughed at Chanyeol’s lame joke, Baekhyun just clicked his tongue. He honestly thought he would have _seen_ the boy before, especially if he were in their classroom.

“To be fair, he’s only been there since the beginning of this year… but still your eyes do not work at all Baek.” Jongdae chimed in. Baekhyun let out a little relieved sigh, so he’d not been completely blind since the beginning of their High School education. A small surge of guilt hit Baekhyun in the stomach however, he knew he needed to work on paying attention to his surroundings and the people in them.

“Ha ha ha, I’m busy _learning_ when I come to school so that’s probably why I missed him.” Maybe that was why Kyungsoo was so put out, because Baekhyun was a classmate and didn’t even recognise him. It still didn’t register as true though, Baekhyun was sure Kyungsoo had double checked he was the right person when they’d met. He’d asked him his name, if he already knew it then he wouldn’t have had to ask. 

“Not too busy to check out how short Yeri’s skirt is getting though, eh?” Jongdae winked and wiggled his eyebrows, Chanyeol let out a laugh like a deranged donkey attracting the stares of a couple of girls from the year below them and making them giggle in surprise.

“I don’t check that stuff out Jongdae, you point it out to me on the daily.” Baekhyun rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, it’s great.” Jongdae sat back on his chair with an expression of pure happiness on his face, probably remembering what Yeri’s thighs looked like as she’d quickly bent over to pick up her pen earlier. “I guess you are a bit ditzy sometimes, no matter how good your grades are.” Jongdae winked at him again, Baekhyun wished he’d stop doing that.

“I’m sure I’d remember him though, he’s so…” Baekhyun was about to say the word _interesting_ as it unconsciously skirted across his mind, but he held himself back hoping the other two would make their own assumptions at whatever adjective he was going to use. He had even startled himself at the thought, he’d not thought it at the time of their meeting.

“Freaky?” Chanyeol supplied.

“No… I don’t know what I was going to say…” Baekhyun lied smoothly.

“Maybe you meant _’memorable’_ , but don't worry even I forget he’s there all the time.” Jongdae said, and Baekhyun secretly thanked the God’s Jongdae was his friend after all.

***

Baekhyun’s stomach was churning up an uncomfortable nervous feeling as the three of them headed back to their classroom after lunch. It had never occurred to Baekhyun to even look at the back of the room when he entered his class, he always kept his eyes on his own seat at the front. Though today he was determined to make sure he scanned the whole room.

He knew what the room looked like, sure. He wasn’t _blind_ but it was a fairly basic square room and details like faces and such escaped him, he needed to make room for the facts and figures and information he required for school. Though now, stepping in after most of the class he let his eyes wander to the furthest reaches, as Chanyeol had described it as the _’shadows’._

Sure enough, like a truck colliding with a wall, his heart stopped as he made eye contact with none other than Do Kyungsoo. He was sat at the back of the room, his desk pulled as far back as he could get away with, slouching a little in his chair but without glasses he’d been wearing earlier. No wonder Baekhyun hadn’t _seen_ him before, he was practically hunched over himself hoping that he could become as small as possible in the corner.

Kyungsoo had clocked him though, and his immeasurably large eyes doubled in size as though no one had ever made eye contact with him before. It was only a moment, but Baekhyun remembered himself and sent a small smile to the back of the room, in acknowledgement that he’d seen the other boy. Kyungsoo didn’t return it, but Baekhyun was sitting down so quickly he may have missed it anyway.

Throughout the rest of the day, Baekhyun could feel Kyungsoo’s eyes on the back of his head. Maybe it was his brain playing tricks on him, but if the burning of his ears was anything to go by, it was a good conductor that he’d felt something shift in their classroom dynamics.

At the very end of the day their teacher for the latest subject informed them, once again, of the studying halls they could all use at their disposal. Anyone wanting to have a decent chance at passing their exams had to attend now, or they’d have even less time to prepare.

Baekhyun stood up awkwardly after packing his things away, hovering between the seat and the desk next to him and tapping his foot on the floor.

“You coming, Baek?” Jongdae asked, swinging his backpack across one shoulder.

“Tutoring tonight,” Baekhyun replied keeping his voice small, though it didn’t matter because Jongdae was now sending a cat-like grin to the back of the room. Baekhyun followed his line of sight and saw the moment Kyungsoo realised they were talking about him. He curled in on himself a little, as if Jongdae was a predator, it gave Baekhyun an uncomfortable twisty feeling in his belly.

“Gotcha,” Jongdae winked, he clapped him on the shoulder as he passed and he left with Chanyeol in tow. Baekhyun stood, awkwardly watching them until they were out of sight and it was just him and Kyungsoo left.

He turned to Kyungsoo’s dark corner, to find him packing his things very slowly. Finally, after another breath he walked towards him, picking his bag up with one hand as he went.

“Ready?” He asked brightly, Kyungsoo only offered him a nondescript look in return. “There’s a lot more space in the study halls.”

“Yep,” Kyungsoo replied shortly hauling his bag onto his shoulder.

“Hey Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun said softly, stopping his classmate as he made to leave, “I’m not your enemy or anything, I’m here to help.” Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes at him ever so slightly, posture changing so he looked a little more defensive.

“I didn’t ask to be helped.” He said stiffly, jaw jutting out a little to indicate his displeasure.

“I didn’t ask to help.” Baekhyun fired back easily jumping to the defensive, a look of shock crossed Kyungsoo’s face for half a second. Baekhyun didn’t need his impertinence if that was how he wanted to act, Kyungsoo may not have asked but neither did Baekhyun.

“I thought you’d have jumped at the chance to be a tutor,” Kyungsoo admitted still holding his narrowed-eyed gaze at the other. Baekhyun huffed, he stood up straighter and pushed his sleeves up before crossing his arms over his chest.

“Then you don’t know me.” He said simply, this seemed to amuse Kyungsoo as he snorted and glanced to his right, disbelieving. “I was roped into this, same as you. However, I like to help people so you should consider yourself lucky I’m so nice.” Kyungsoo actually scoffed at that and Baekhyun pursed his lips, feeling the irritation setting into his muscles. “Problem?”

“No problem, it’s just… I’m pretty sure you didn’t know who I was.” Baekhyun’s stomach dropped, “So I’m having a hard time seeing you as someone who is _so nice_. You seem kind of egotistical… or arrogant, what with the way you think everyone wants to listen to what you have to say in class.” That left a nasty taste in his mouth, his aim wasn’t to be the centre of attention he just couldn’t control it when he wanted to ask questions. Was that really such a bad trait to have? Although, thinking about it maybe he did come off as a bit of a brat, he hadn’t realised it irked other people.

He rubbed his eyes, feeling tired of the conversation already but he couldn’t give up. Especially now he felt like he really did need to make it up to Kyungsoo, Baekhyun felt an inexplicable urge to make Kyungsoo like him.

“Chanyeol said you were smart, don’t be an idiot and not let me help you because of _that_.” He said, hoping to appeal to his more rational nature. “And I’m not arrogant, I’m just curious,” He added in an undertone.

“Smart? I’m getting C’s in everything." That stopped Baekhyun in his tracks.

“What? You’re getting C’s in everything?” Baekhyun gawped. He wasn’t sure if this was a game or not, even Junmyeon had said he was doing well in everything else.

“Its a passing grade isn’t it?” Kyungsoo asked rhetorically. Of course it was, it just wasn’t a _good_ passing grade.

“Well yeah…” Baekhyun trailed off, it was hard to argue with that logic really.

“So Bio is the only thing I’m getting a D in. You don’t need to waste your time, I just need to up my grade, I could probably do it myself if I could be bothered, but too many people were on my back about it. So here we are.” Kyungsoo was so unconcerned about his education Baekhyun could only gape at him.

“… But… Junmyeon said you were fine with everything else…” Baekhyun tried, only stuttering out the odd word.

“Junmyeon told _you_ that, because _I_ told him that. I don’t care about top grades, I want people to stop bugging me about a failing grade. Simple.” Kyungsoo shrugged it off like it was no big deal, but there was something in his eyes that shouted _’rebellion’_ at him. It seemed much deeper than just a blasé attitude to schooling. Against his own will, Baekhyun felt himself soften.

“What about your university? Doesn’t that require certain grades?” Baekhyun asked, remembering how he needed the top grade in at least three of his subjects to even get into University.

“University? Do I look like I want to carry on with school?” Kyungsoo cocked an eyebrow.

“I mean- I don’t think it has a particular _look_ per se.” Baekhyun mumbled, starting to feel very small under Kyungsoo’s stare.

“The answer is no. No, I do not. None of it matters anyway.” Kyungsoo waved his hand dismissively. Fair enough he didn’t care about it, but the feeling that washed over Baekhyun was unpleasant, as if he’d just dismissed everything about him with a lazy wave of his hand. He swallowed hard.

“It matters to some of us.” He said, frowning down at his shoes.

“Look, I’m only here because I have to be.” Kyungsoo said, more gently this time, Baekhyun felt more than confused by that, so far he hadn’t been too bothered if he were nice to him or not, “Don’t stress yourself by trying to make me into a model student.”

“Fine,” Baekhyun said, though he didn’t mean it. If Kyungsoo didn’t want to learn then what could he do? He _could_ try and teach him without him realising it, that thought gave him an idea. “Out of curiosity though,” He began, grabbing Kyungsoo’s attention again, he gulped slightly when their eyes made contact, “what is your favourite subject at school?”

Kyungsoo stared blankly at him for a moment before a small grin tugged at his lips, “Recess.”

“Be serious,” Baekhyun deadpanned.

“I am serious. The best time of the day is break time, next to actually _leaving_ school.” Baekhyun could get on board with kids not liking school, it was stressful and you did have to do stuff you hated, but he’d never met someone who hated _everything_ about it.

“You don’t even like… art? P.E? Social?” Baekhyun tried, but Kyungsoo just shook his head, “Seriously nothing at all?”

“Music class is alright, when I’m left alone.” Kyungsoo answered after a short pause. Aha! So there was something he liked, he wasn’t just an empty shell of a human being. Baekhyun could work with that, they had that in common, which was a start.

“Me too! Music is great,” He said enthusiastically, excited to share the same interest with him.

“You? Like music class?” Kyungsoo raised his eyebrows.

“Yeah, what do you mean by that?” It was Baekhyun’s turn to narrow his eyes now.

“Oh, nothing. You just don’t seem the type.” Kyungsoo mumbled, shaking his head as if it were the most absurd thing he’d ever heard. 

“Yeah, well you don’t _seem_ the type to hate school so much,” Baekhyun shot back, feeling quite offended he had the audacity to say he _didn’t seem the type_ , “but here we are.” Baekhyun finished with a hand gesture throwing his words right back at him, to which Kyungsoo just stared at once again.

Baekhyun’s anger was dying down a little, as it always did when he was left for a moment to cool off. The corners of Kyungsoo’s lips twitched again, though this time quirking a little differently, and he simply said, “Touché.”

***

The following day, Baekhyun clung onto Jongdae’s shirt sleeve for most of the morning, pouting. By lunch it seemed to bother him a lot more than it had at break time. Baekhyun wasn’t going to offer the reason for his constant sadness until one of them asked him, and it was Jongdae who cracked first.

“I need my arms to eat, Baek.” Jongdae said and Baekhyun reluctantly let him go, “Going to tell us why you have a titty-lip today?”

“Do you guys think I’m arrogant?” Chanyeol actually stopped mid-bite to stare disbelievingly at him, whilst Jongdae snorted into his drink. Baekhyun had never felt so unsure of himself, but he’d been tossing what Kyungsoo had said, over in his mind all night.

“Who told you, you were arrogant?” Chanyeol finally put down his food in order to be more involved with the conversation. Baekhyun’s ears felt hot again.

“Was it that Kyungsoo kid?” Jongdae urged, picking up on Baekhyun’s silence. 

“He just said he thought I was a bit egotistical or arrogant, because I ask loads of questions in class.” Baekhyun admitted sadly. It still stung him a little, he’d never meant to come across as anything but enthusiastic about his education. Maybe pushing the boundaries a little by asking for more information, but never _arrogant_.

“Envious probably.” Chanyeol suggested in all his infinite wisdom, Baekhyun glanced at him incredulously.

“Envious?”

“Think about it Baekhyun! The guy doesn’t have any friends, none from our class at least, because he stares at them like they just insulted twenty of his family members by existing.” Chanyeol explained, exaggerating a little unnecessarily, “I heard he beat someone up last year and that’s why he’s in our class now.” Chanyeol’s attention returned promptly to his food.

“No way…” Baekhyun said disbelieving that information was fact, he just couldn’t _see_ that sort of behaviour from Kyungsoo. Sure he may have been a bit more blunt than Baekhyun was used to, but to go as far to say he’d beaten someone up? That just seemed ridiculous.

“I heard that too, I’m really surprised you didn’t…” Jongdae nodded. Baekhyun frowned down at his meal, not to say that just because Jongdae had heard that rumour as well meant that it was true. Maybe no one understood the context if he _had_ beaten someone up. The information passed around schools was mainly all wrong anyway, fact turned into elaborate rumours very quickly since people neglected to mention all of the information when passing it along.

“You know you guys are my social eyes and ears sometimes.” Baekhyun mumbled.

“Yeah, you’d have no friends either if it weren’t for us.” Chanyeol said it in jest, laughing as he did so but he was right. Baekhyun may have made acquaintances in school, maybe hung out with other people now and again; he found from a very young age a lot of people got sick of him quickly because he’d never sit still. Only Chanyeol and Jongdae didn’t seem to care, and all of the _’friends’_ he had now were mainly because they kept up with them.

“But people like you anyway, you’re a funny guy.”

“Funny, smart, charming… even _with_ your innate need to play with everything, I’d say he’s definitely envious of you.” Baekhyun found that difficult to believe, Kyungsoo didn’t really strike him as the jealous type, but he also didn’t know him well enough to know he wasn’t.

“You guys are just saying that because you’re biased.” 

“No I seriously think Jiyeon agreed to go to Junmyeon’s party with me so she could get close to you.” Both Baekhyun and Jongdae went rigid at the name and sent each other a sly look, though Chanyeol picked up on it immediately, “What?”

“Nothing.” They both said at the same time, much to Chanyeol’s suspicion.

“No, what?” Chanyeol insisted.

“Nothing, it’s nothing.” Jongdae dismissed by shaking his head. Chanyeol regarded the pair of them suspiciously, but decided to let it go. Baekhyun couldn’t make eye-contact with Jongdae just yet, because he knew once he did their cover would be blown by them falling over each other howling with laughter. Chanyeol had shrugged and taken another mouthful whilst they composed themselves.

“Anyway… don’t worry about it. You’ll have forgotten about him this time next year, who cares if he doesn’t like you?” Chanyeol continued, returning to the original topic of conversation. Baekhyun hummed to himself. It wasn’t often Baekhyun would admit that Chanyeol was right, but he did make a fair point.

***

Chanyeol’s advice to not give a crap about how Kyungsoo thought of him didn’t settle the apprehensive feeling sloshing in his stomach as he approached Kyungsoo after class. He knew he had to be quick to catch him today, since they didn’t make any plans to meet again. Baekhyun had noticed that as soon as the bell rang for any breaks, he’d no sooner turned in his seat to address Kyungsoo, to find the boy already at the door on his way out.

He’d prepared his bag and informed his friends that he needed to speak with Kyungsoo before he _‘ran off’_ so he wouldn’t have to deal with them. Baekhyun had arrived at Kyungsoo’s desk just as the other boy stood up to leave, he met his eyes with a look of almost pure displeasure which Baekhyun tried his best to ignore.

“I know you don’t like me,” He said swiftly trying to get his words out as fast as possible, “But we need to study and I’d say you might need me every day so…” He left his point hanging for Kyungsoo to pick up on, standing awkwardly in front of him.

The other boy rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose for a second. It was hard not to feel deflated by that, Baekhyun hadn’t done anything personal to him and felt like it was slightly unwarranted for Kyungsoo to act like it was a chore even to speak to him.

“Fine but I have to be at home some days so you’ll just have to come with me.” Kyungsoo’s tone was also unreadable, not only had the statement taken Baekhyun by surprise but it sounded as though Kyungsoo might have a problem with it? Although he was the one to suggest it?

Do Kyungsoo was one perplexing human being.

“Okay,” Baekhyun agreed bemused by his attitude, “I have Hapkido with Jongdae after school on Thursdays but it’s half an hour… I could come by your house after?”

“Well I kind of need to be home today so you’d have to come with me every Tuesday and Thursday in that case.” Kyungsoo shifted his weight around from one foot to the other.

“That’s fine with me,” 

“Alright,” Kyungsoo nodded to himself, “Come on then.”

“What, _now_?” Baekhyun asked in alarm. Kyungsoo turned to face him with a slightly bewildered expression, one that pulled his eyebrows together.

“You just said I need to study every day, I said I have to be at home on Tuesdays, today is Tuesday? I’m not sure whats tripping you up…” Baekhyun felt his ears heat up with embarrassment, he’d understood him perfectly but for some reason the words tumbled out of his mouth before he could stop them.

“No, I understand…” Baekhyun waved his hands a little wildly, “I just barely know you and now I’m spending time at your house… don’t you need time to tell your parents?”

“Trust me, they won’t care.” Kyungsoo made to move again but Baekhyun’s next question stopped him.

“As long as you’re sure?” Baekhyun knew _his_ parents were very unusual, mainly because they seemed to be cool with nearly everything as long as Baekhyun informed them. _He_ could turn up with a random stranger unannounced, but he knew his parents would at least prefer it if he at least called first.

“I’m sure.” Kyungsoo stalked off without Baekhyun even having time to open his mouth to agree. He ran after him after he’d recovered from the shock of what was now happening.

It was awkward, walking with Kyungsoo to the bus stop. He barely knew the kid and now he was going to tutor him in his house? It was a good thing Baekhyun went with the flow or he’d be having a panic attack right about now. He text his mother a swift _Going to tutor tonight, got to be at their house but I will let you know if I eat, see you later xx_ , just so she knew he was safe. She had replied not more than a minute later with an _Okay darling, see you later xx_.

Kyungsoo was still quiet as they travelled, Baekhyun had tried to start some small talk with him, but that seemed to get on his nerves more than anything else. So Baekhyun had decided to keep quiet until Kyungsoo ushered him in the direction of his house. It kind of felt like he’d become more surly and drawn into himself the closer they got, which both alarmed Baekhyun and intrigued him.

When they arrived, Kyungsoo’s mother was cooking in the kitchen. As a rule that his parents taught him, he insisted they go and say hello to her, so she at least knew some random stranger was in their home for a purpose.

“Hi Mom,” Kyungsoo cleared his throat. She turned away from the stove to greet him as he’d spoken, startling Baekhyun with just how much she resembled Kyungsoo. They both shared the same huge eyes and full lips.

“Hello sweetheart, who’s this?” Kyungsoo’s mother asked pleasantly. Everything looked so homely in Kyungsoo’s house, yet another thing he wasn’t expecting. Baekhyun offered her a polite smile and turned towards Kyungsoo, who was now looking downright uncomfortable; a different kind of uncomfortable from school.

“My tutor, Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo introduced him with a small voice. Baekhyun watched as realisation dawned on his mothers face.

“Oh! It’s nice to meet you, Baekhyun.” She said kindly, and Baekhyun bowed to her in return, “You must be smart if you’re a tutor!” It wasn’t that Baekhyun was unused to parents and teachers calling him smart, he tried hard and got good grades for it but it never failed to inflate the tiny bubble of pride in his chest.

“I get decent grades.” Baekhyun answered modestly, offering a charming smile as he did so.

“Better than my Kyungsoo here! Thank goodness you’re helping, otherwise he’d be below average forever!” Baekhyun blinked, he couldn’t quite believe what was coming out of her mouth, she looked so sweet and lovely but that seemed like an unnecessarily harsh dig at her son. Baekhyun looked questioningly to Kyungsoo, his eyes were downcast and Baekhyun had never seen someone look so small. He swallowed against the horrible feeling of bile rising in his throat.

“He’s not below average-” Baekhyun tried to argue, as diplomatically as he could but his mother was already giggling and waving her hand.

“Oh you’re a charmer! Don’t worry we’re all aware of Kyungsoo’s performance in school, you don’t have to sugar coat it for us!” She was playing it off like it was all a joke, but the undeniable sense of passive-aggressiveness was hard to ignore. Baekhyun felt his jaw drop momentarily before he remembered to close it again, he smiled as politely as he could muster given the awkward situation, “I just hope you get through that thick skull of his! God knows we try!” She playfully knocked Kyungsoo on the head, very softly but the message was loud and clear.

Baekhyun retained his stunned silence until Kyungsoo was ushering him away up the stairs to his bedroom with a “We best get going.” It wasn’t until the door firmly closed to his bedroom did Baekhyun even find his voice again.

“Kyungsoo…” He began quietly, not quite knowing what to say. What struck him the most was the high colour decorating Kyungsoo’s usually resigned face. He looked incredibly embarrassed and it crossed Baekhyun’s mind that it may be a reason he was so closed off, he vowed not to make him feel as worthless as his mother just did. It wasn’t fair though, Baekhyun had been purposefully listening out for Kyungsoo in class, he knew the answers to the questions, he wasn’t an idiot.

“Don’t.” Kyungsoo cut him off, “Just don’t.” If Baekhyun were to look more closely he may have said he could see unshed tears in Kyungsoo’s eyes. To save any more uncomfortable situations for him, Baekhyun pretended not to notice.

“You know you’re not stupid, right?” Baekhyun asked desperately, Kyungsoo just levelled an incredulous look his way as he passed him to get to his desk. “Seriously, Kyungsoo.” The other boy was now busying himself with clearing a space for him and Baekhyun to work on, he looked like he wanted to avoid any more eye contact with him.

“I can answer questions, the teachers literally tell you the answers moments before.” Kyungsoo mumbled as he grabbed a couple of pillows and threw them near the low desk. Baekhyun watched the movement of papers and old music sheets get swept away into a pile and then out of sight under the table.

“Then why are you getting C’s…?” Baekhyun still couldn’t wrap his head around it.

“I get C’s without trying. Studying is boring and pointless if I’m already getting a passing grade.” Kyungsoo reasoned, plopping himself down on the pillow closer to his bed. Baekhyun followed and sat himself on the other, pulling his bag towards him to gather his biology notes.

“You’d get B’s if you just went over the stuff now and again,” Baekhyun said gently. He had seen this before, Jongdae was a master at reading something once and retaining the information for years. Kyungsoo might not have a photographic memory but if he refreshed himself he’d probably do a lot better when it came to the school work.

Kyungsoo sighed loudly, “You know I don’t care about that stuff.” He said a little impatiently, Baekhyun frowned.

“Then why let what your mother said get to you so much?” Baekhyun’s filter seemed to be broken as far as Kyungsoo was concerned, he always managed to say stuff to piss him off without meaning to. Judging by Kyungsoo’s newly acquired affronted look, he’d crossed a line. “I’m sor-”

“I said don’t.” Kyungsoo growled cutting his apology short. Baekhyun had the good sense to look contrite for his careless words, he didn’t mean to say that out loud anyway.

“I’m sorry.” He said, finally. They sat in awkward silence for a few minutes whilst Baekhyun arranged his notes on what he wanted to teach Kyungsoo today. Kyungsoo sat with his arms and legs folded, staring angrily at his bedroom door. “Do you have the most recent test?” Baekhyun was going to have to tread lightly with Kyungsoo, though he just seemed to be losing all of his sense when he was around him.

Kyungsoo moved silently, rummaging through other papers on his desk, until he pulled out a Biology test with a large red D on the front of it. He handed it to Baekhyun silently. Baekhyun sighed and started to read through just exactly what Kyungsoo was having trouble with. He’d have to figure him out later.

***

They were in the study halls on Wednesdays and Fridays, on a Monday their teacher for the last class had trusted them with the whole room. Since a lot of students tried to look like they’d be busy for the rest of the week by attending the study halls, and then falling off mid week; he’d suggested that they stay in the classroom so they could have some peace and quiet. It was much better this way, it meant the two of them could be guaranteed a place to work and not have to worry about all the seats being used either.

It had only been a week and a half into their tutoring sessions when Baekhyun’s inability to sit still finally drove Kyungsoo to slam his pen down on the desk and inhale angrily through his nose. Baekhyun was amazed it had taken this long for him to get annoyed by it, he adopted a pleasantly amused expression when Kyungsoo addressed the matter.

“Do you ever stop moving?” He was clearly irritated but unwilling to outwardly show it.

“No.” 

“Where do you even get the energy?”

“I have what’s called ‘Psychomotor Over-Excitability’, well at least that’s what the internet says,” Baekhyun seized his chance to teach him something else, “its a heightened excitability in the neuromuscular system. The neuromuscular system includes all the muscles in the body and the nerves attached to them. I mean it’s because every movement your body makes requires communication between the brain and the muscles, and mine is just… excited.” Kyungsoo went quiet, like he usually did when Baekhyun was explaining things, though this time he actually looked mildly interested.

“So your brain is sending rapid fire to all of your nerves and muscles?” 

“Basically.” Baekhyun shrugged, continuing to drum a beat on the book with the end of his pencil. “It’s a lot better than it was when I was a kid, they said it was ADHD but I don’t think its that at all.”

“Oh.” Kyungsoo said, “Is that why you’re always playing with that bracelet as well?” Kyungsoo gestured to the leather wrapped around Baekhyun’s wrist. It startled Baekhyun a little bit, the fact that Kyungsoo was noticing very small things about him, since playing with the leather didn’t make half as much noise as the pencil did.

“Yeah… My grandfather taught me how to tie knots like they do in the navy, so I practiced with this… It keeps my hands busy if I _really_ can’t sit still.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” Baekhyun offered him a lopsided grin and sighed. He hadn’t actually made a knot in a long time, not because he’d been managing himself better but every time he did it brought back memories.

It was a gift from his uncle who travelled the world a lot, originally intended as a necklace just a cheap touristy gift from his trip to Aruba; but it held the fondest memory of Baekhyun’s childhood with it. When his grandfather was trying to teach him how to tie different nautical knots that he’d learned from the navy, Baekhyun had taken the time and effort to recreate the miniature knots, using his necklace to show him the next time he visited. Sadly, he hadn’t lived to see Baekhyun perfect the round turn and two half hitches, so Baekhyun wore the necklace on his wrist, securing it with a simple figure-eight knot.

It crossed Baekhyun’s mind that this was probably one of the first _real_ conversations they’d had. Their relationship wasn’t exactly friends, but more like Kyungsoo just sat and listened to everything Baekhyun had to say, which came in handy since Baekhyun always had a lot to say. He wasn’t a man of many words, but he would ask if he didn’t understand something.

Sometimes he did feel like he was taking two steps forward and one step back with Kyungsoo, as he usually adopted a certain look on his face, like he either wanted to kill Baekhyun or die himself. Especially when Baekhyun was trying to explain something complicated, Kyungsoo’s life philosophy of _’I don’t care enough to listen to this’_ always made an appearance at those times. 

Baekhyun felt like he understood more where Kyungsoo’s feelings were coming from though, since he’d spent time at his house a few nights already. He witnessed the type of back-handed compliments and the passive-aggressive relationship he had with his parents. They obviously favoured Kyungsoo’s older brother, to him and it broke Baekhyun’s heart a little bit whenever he’d hear his father calling him “thick-brained” as a joke, or his mother playfully knocking on his head to see if there was a brain in there. Kyungsoo was clearly bothered by it, and Baekhyun still had to work up the nerve to ask him why he didn’t call them out on it.

Only after a few sessions with Kyungsoo, he felt as if he _was_ starting to get a vague picture of how the other boy worked. Kyungsoo wasn’t the type to do well under stress, in fact the more Baekhyun threw at him and nagged at him the further away he pulled. Which made Baekhyun feel like all of his hard work at getting him to like him was wasted. 

He needed a new approach, one that was more Kyungsoo’s speed. Baekhyun had learned that Kyungsoo liked to go to the movies, at the same time he learned that Kyungsoo also went alone. The thought made Baekhyun a little sad, people seemed to have this impression of Kyungsoo that just wasn’t true.

Jongdae and Chanyeol called him scary, but Baekhyun would just call him reserved. He could be quite funny when he wanted to be as well, intentional or not Baekhyun liked to laugh and see the corners of his mouth quirk up against his will. He took it as a small baby step to victory every time he managed it.

“I wanted to ask you something,” Baekhyun started, breaking the silence again. Kyungsoo regarded him with an either questioning look or a scowl, it was very difficult to tell.

“Okay,”

“Why don’t you always wear your glasses?” It had been something that had itched Baekhyun since they’d met. The very first time they’d met, Kyungsoo had been wearing his glasses, but even later that day, in class, he’d not had them on. Then whenever Baekhyun did manage to see Kyungsoo during his break or lunch, he’d be wearing them again. It was the most confused Baekhyun had ever been, he couldn’t fathom why he’d take them off.

He knew he _had_ to wear them, since Kyungsoo clearly couldn’t see without them.

Kyungsoo didn’t answer for a moment, he sat sucking on his teeth for a couple of seconds, then, “They make me look like I care.”

“But you can’t see without them,” Baekhyun pointed out, “How can you even read your notes right now?”

“Because I don’t care.” Kyungsoo insisted but his expression told him that wasn’t the whole truth of the matter.

“Is it all about you not caring? Or is it something else?” Baekhyun pressed. He knew enough about Kyungsoo now, after spending some time with him, that he needed to push him out of his comfort zone a little bit to get him to talk.

“No.” He sounded like a pouting five year old.

“Kyungsoo.” Baekhyun deadpanned, and the other boy rolled his eyes. 

“It’s just something else I can’t do.” He said rather angrily, “Something _else_ I need help with.” Baekhyun sucked on his bottom lip as he let that information sink in. Kyungsoo didn’t want to try, didn’t want to care. He had to get a tutor so that he could up his grade in Biology, since others had pushed him into it. It was probably why he adopted a permanently disgruntled look whenever Baekhyun was around, though that look was definitely starting to soften around the edges.

“Its not a crime to need help,” Baekhyun said, getting the feeling Kyungsoo needed to hear something along those lines.

“Yeah well…” He trailed off, offering no further information.

“In fact, I’d say it’s a strength… admitting when you need help is a really difficult thing to do for a lot of people. Recognising when you can’t do everything on your own and giving into that feeling is really admirable.”

“So what your saying is that I’m not admirable.”

“No I’m saying your stubborn.” Baekhyun fired back, “I think that’s a nugget of information people don’t tell you. In school they put all the pressure on you to get yourself through it, and maybe other people do but no one gets anywhere alone.”

“Are you teaching me Biology? Or Philosophy?” It was meant to be a sarcastic comment, but Baekhyun chose to ignore that.

“Life lessons,” Baekhyun proclaimed.

“You’re like nineteen.”

“I feel about thirty.” Baekhyun said wistfully, looking off into the distance for dramatic effect. He heard Kyungsoo snort and his head snapped back to him in shock. “Did I just make you laugh?” He said excitedly. Kyungsoo had already tried to force his face back into an indifferent expression.

“No.”

But Baekhyun beamed regardless, feeling his heart inflate with the victory. “You should wear them when we study at least.” He offered as a compromise. He may not get Kyungsoo to wear them all the time, but when it was just the two of them it wouldn’t be so bad.

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Seriously, if you can’t see my notes you’re not getting them.” Baekhyun teased with a big grin, and no matter how much Kyungsoo tried to hide it, Baekhyun could see that he was trying very hard not to smile.

***

It was taking a lot longer to piece Kyungsoo together than Baekhyun had originally estimated, it was difficult because Kyungsoo was pretty much an enigma and Baekhyun felt like he was walking blindfolded in a dark room.

He assumed that Kyungsoo had been taking in all the information he’d given him, or at least looked at the copies he took of his own notes for him in case he needed to read over them again. However, Baekhyun also assumed Kyungsoo _didn’t_ do that off his own back, and tried his very best to explain everything in a not-so-boring way.

The pace in class was getting relentless, some teachers went out of their way to make life as difficult and stressful as possible in order to prepare them for the upcoming exams. A few teachers in particular set mock exams for them to do nearly every time they came in the room. Baekhyun was finding himself getting used to the types of questions he may be asked in the real exam, but he couldn’t help but glance behind him surreptitiously to see how Kyungsoo was taking it.

Once he turned to find Kyungsoo playing with his pencil rather than looking at the paper in front of him, _still_ not wearing his damned glasses. He wasn’t shocked to find out later than Kyungsoo had done exceedingly poorly. He was getting frustrated with him, Kyungsoo was smart enough to move his grade up by the one he wanted if he just focused.

Baekhyun stormed up to him at the end of class, when they’d received the latest results. He slammed his own paper down in front of him, a large A decorating the front page. Before Kyungsoo could react, he’d grabbed his paper displaying the usual D and growled at him. Kyungsoo looked completely taken aback by Baekhyun’s reaction.

He narrowed his eyes and threw himself onto the desk top next to Kyungsoo’s and read through his answers to the test paper. It was silent, save for Baekhyun’s angry breathing, and Kyungsoo’s foot tapping against the metal table leg. He was too young for his blood pressure to rise up so high, but as he read the answers that _he knew_ Kyungsoo knew, but had deliberately put the wrong answer, he felt himself start to shake.

Thankfully every other student had filed out of the classroom before Baekhyun spoke.

“Are you shitting me?” He hissed holding up the paper to indicate he was talking about it, though still worried that other people might be lurking around. Kyungsoo met his angry stare with a defiant one of his own.

“I, quite clearly, am not shitting you.” Kyungsoo said dryly.

“Kyungsoo!” Baekhyun finally cried, exasperated, “You _know_ DNA is unique to each person! We just went over this!” Kyungsoo just shrugged and Baekhyun made a small frustrated noise, “I am _not_ tutoring you for nothing!” He was one small step away from wringing his neck.

“Maybe you’re just a bad tutor.” Kyungsoo offered. Baekhyun found it curious that he was still refusing to make eye-contact with him though.

“Not likely.” He had to stop himself from snarling like he desperately wanted to, “I know you also know mitosis is cell division and _not_ a disease.” Baekhyun pressed on, flipping through the test paper once more, shaking his head. “And you-!”

“I panic, okay?” Kyungsoo said harshly. Baekhyun gaped at him with his mouth still half open. It was hard to read Do Kyungsoo, but Baekhyun did kind of feel like he was peeling layers away from him every time he spent time with him. Kyungsoo didn’t seem to enjoy this fact, because he looked like he wanted to break every bone in Baekhyun’s body when he admitted something embarrassing. Baekhyun softened his face and let his anger go, he slid off the desk and crouched next to him.

“In tests?”

“Yeah.” Kyungsoo was focusing very hard on a spot across the room, harbouring that betrayed and angry look he had for himself whenever he did say something personal. He crossed his arms over his body tightly. Some people didn’t cope with the testing system very well, and even though Baekhyun knew Kyungsoo had taken in the information, the way his brain dealt with the stress was unhelpful no matter how much he knew.

Baekhyun felt a pang of remorse for misjudging him and thinking he did it deliberately. He shouldn’t have had a go at him, he knew Kyungsoo didn’t do well under stress.

“They do put a lot of pressure on us,” Baekhyun agreed, trying to get Kyungsoo to loosen his grip on himself. It looked like he was afraid he’d fall to pieces if it slackened. “But you’re smart enough to know it, I know you know it… you just have to relax.”

“Why do I need a test to prove it?” Kyungsoo sounded exhausted. Baekhyun wasn’t going to let the fact he’d successfully got Kyungsoo to ease up slightly go to his head.

“I don’t know.” Baekhyun said honestly, “They think its the best way to gauge our understanding.” He stood up from his squatting position, and placed the test gently back onto Kyungsoo’s desk, the other boy stared at it for a moment before he turned it over.

“You see why I think this is all bullshit, right?” Finally, Kyungsoo looked Baekhyun in the eye.

“Yeah, but we have to go through it.” Baekhyun looked down sadly, if he could stop the tests from happening, he would do it for Kyungsoo. They were left in silence for a couple of minutes, whilst Kyungsoo brooded and Baekhyun tossed the idea that had just popped up in his head over a couple of times. “Hey, why don’t we forget tutoring for tonight?”

“Why?”

“Let’s just chill out, stressing out will make things worse.” He realised he hated seeing Kyungsoo down about another thing. His parents were putting pressure on him, even if they didn’t think they were, then school was adding to it and now Baekhyun. He didn’t want to be the reason for Kyungsoo’s plunging mood, he wanted to lift him up. Their school days were supposed to be the best years of their lives.

“Okay…” Kyungsoo said, unsurely.

“Wanna go see a movie?”

For the first time since he’d met him, Kyungsoo’s face lit up into a genuine smile. He’d relaxed his furrowed brow, and hard lines across his mouth to reveal one of the most pleasant smiles Baekhyun had ever seen, and it wasn’t a smirk, his mouth made a heart-shape and the joy actually reached his eyes. Baekhyun had never been so breathless in his life.

“Hard-ass tutor asking if I want to slack off for the evening?” He teased, Baekhyun found himself laughing as he rolled his eyes, trying to distract himself from the odd twisting of his stomach.

“Yeah, lets go wild.” Baekhyun joked back, “Though don’t expect it all the time.”

“Yeah, okay.”

***

Baekhyun had taken Kyungsoo back home so he could let his parents know he was going out with a friend, he insisted Kyungsoo text his at least since he felt responsible for him. When they arrived, his parents had been overjoyed when he brought Kyungsoo back they fussed over the pair of them, asking Kyungsoo all sorts of questions that he answered politely. His mother was so excited, she had offered to pay for the whole thing and even gave the pair of them a lift to the cinema, much to Kyungsoo’s amusement and Baekhyun’s extreme embarrassment.

They were now stood in the foyer, looking at all the titles they could choose from. It seemed as though it was between Wolf of Wall Street or Man of Steel. Kyungsoo hadn’t looked at Baekhyun in a good ten minutes as he was trying to decide.

“Which one did you want to see more?”

“I don’t know,” Kyungsoo said slowly, still with a contemplative look on his face.

“I mean Superman is pretty cool,” Baekhyun mused out loud, not sure if it would sway Kyungsoo’s decision either way. He tapped his foot on the floor to no beat in particular as he waited for Kyungsoo’s eyebrows to relax and pick a film.

“Okay, Man of Steel it is.” 

“Really?” Baekhyun’s eyes lit up and Kyungsoo nodded.

“Really, lets get tickets.” Baekhyun silently praised himself for being able to loosen Kyungsoo up a little. First the genuine smile and now their shared bond of enjoying a Superman film together. It swelled a small part of Baekhyun’s heart as they playfully bickered over which cinema snack was the best, it was obviously sweet popcorn but Kyungsoo insisted it was nachos with extra cheese.

He even took the well-aimed poke to the ribs as a victory as Baekhyun yapped in his ear about how wrong he was to choose nachos over popcorn. Then another jab to make him sit still during the film. He couldn’t remember when he laughed so much in a movie theatre at an inopportune time and was shushed by the other movie-goers. Giggling softly behind his hand _with_ Kyungsoo.

It was evident that Baekhyun had to change his tutoring tactics with Kyungsoo like he’d thought. After the movie they walked around the shopping complex chatting animatedly about how awesome the movie was, and talking about nonsense things like what super power they’d have if they were a superhero.

“Mine would be force,” Kyungsoo told him, as they walked through the food court, both sporting monster ice creams since Baekhyun had insisted. He’d layered up on the berry-based ice creams, asking for syrup and as many adornments as he could get, whilst Kyungsoo just opted for a nice mint chocolate chip. 

“Force?” Baekhyun inquired after a particularly messy lick up the side of his ice cream, the syrup may have been a mistake because now it was dribbling all over his fingers, and he constantly needed to suck on them to keep them clean.

“You know, have the power to move really heavy objects and break things.” Baekhyun snorted into his cone, “What’s so funny?!”

“No, no its not that its a funny power… it just seems appropriate. For you.” Baekhyun clarified, the growl he received in return had no malice in it at all. 

“What would you have then? The ability to annoy people to death?” Kyungsoo turned the question on its head, taking a large bite off the top of his ice cream, enough to make Baekhyun wince.

“No!” Baekhyun laughed, playfully hitting him on the arm. Kyungsoo grinned widely and it took Baekhyun a moment to remember his answer, “It would be something like… laser beams from the hands… or the power of the sun or something.”

“Haha! That makes sense.” Kyungsoo barked, startling a passer by so much he had to apologise to them. Baekhyun found it very hard to hide his amusement when he turned back to him and Kyungsoo aimed another soft punch to his arm.

“It makes sense?” He challenged.

“Yeah, you always want to be the centre of attention so that the world revolves around you.” Kyungsoo gestured by using his ice cream to signify Baekhyun as a sun and the fingers on his other hand as little planets revolving around them. It was adorable even if a little insulting.

“Hey!” Baekhyun slapped his planet-hands away and Kyungsoo laughed heartily.

“Am I wrong?”

“Dead wrong, I don’t want the world to revolve around me! Just a couple of people’s,” Baekhyun grinned cheekily.

“Well you’re certainly doing that,”

***

Thursday rolled around too quickly in Baekhyun’s opinion. He almost resented having to go to practice when he had a really great plan ahead for studying with Kyungsoo. He wanted to show him one of his favourite TV dramas from America, it was called ‘House’ and dealt with diagnostics and an extremely sarcastic Doctor. Baekhyun was amazed he’d not thought of this earlier, as it was chalked full of the type of information they could both use. Not to mention he thought it would really help Kyungsoo if he watched it in English, just another thing he could help teach him.

However, at the end of the day, he realised that he wouldn’t see Kyungsoo for a good hour after school and that meant that he had to wait to pitch the idea to him.

“Are you ready to go?” It was Kyungsoo who had approached him after the class was finished, with a much brighter expression than he usually wore when it came to getting down to studying. Baekhyun was momentarily taken aback by his attitude before he had to burst his bubble.

“I have practice today…” Baekhyun said unsurely, his fingers unconsciously slid to his left wrist to pull at the leather bracelet. Jongdae had told him earlier that he’d meet him at the gym, since he had to persuade Eunji to go on a date with him, before anyone else could.

“Oh,” Kyungsoo’s face fell, “yeah I forgot…” There was something in his expression that tugged hard at Baekhyun’s heart.

“It wont take long, I mean you could always come too. It’s only half an hour so we can go after that?” Baekhyun suggested as it popped into his head, it was probably a better solution than to walk over to Kyungsoo’s afterwards. Plus, he couldn’t explain why, but he really wanted to show Kyungsoo this part of his life.

“I guess so, I’m not doing anything else tonight clearly.”

“Great! Okay, yeah.” There was an odd tingling feeling emanating from the pit of his stomach to the tips of his toes as Kyungsoo walked to the gymnasium with him. Baekhyun boiled it down to the feeling of victory he was getting every time he chipped away at Kyungsoo’s walls. He really felt like he was softening the other boy up and they were becoming friends. It was a weird sensation because the last time Baekhyun made friends by himself, he was about five and that was with Jongdae and Chanyeol.

Jongdae greeted them at the gym entrance, eyeing up Kyungsoo a little too obviously so Baekhyun had to surreptitiously stand on his foot to make him stop. Baekhyun directed Kyungsoo to the bleachers where he could set up shop and watch.

Jongdae didn’t say a thing as they walked to the locker rooms to get themselves changed. Once they’d entered and located their lockers, Baekhyun’s plan was to escape the smell of old gym shorts and to get dressed as quickly as possible, but Jongdae had other ideas.

“You brought the Do kid?” It was almost like an interrogation, the way he stood in front of his locker so Baekhyun couldn’t even open it. He just levelled an unamused look at him, but Jongdae wasn’t going to move until Baekhyun talked.

“We’re studying later.” He offered as the best explanation he could, but Jongdae evidently wasn’t finished as he slapped Baekhyun’s hand away from the handle of the locker. “Ow!”

“Seems like you’re becoming a lot friendlier with him.” His tone wasn’t accusatory but it didn’t sound like he agreed with Baekhyun’s new friendship choices.

“Well he’s not a bad guy, he’s alright.” Baekhyun sighed, leaning all of his weight to the left and regarding Jongdae with a bored look.

“Yeah okay, well remember me and Chanyeol are your friends… _genuine_ , with no hidden agenda.” Jongdae finally stepped aside from Baekhyun’s locker to open his own.

“What agenda would Kyungsoo have?” Baekhyun frowned, perplexed.

“Who knows.” Jongdae shrugged, “We love you, he’s weird.”

“He is not weird.” Baekhyun insisted with an obnoxious eye roll, one Jongdae just returned right back to him. Baekhyun shook his head with a smile. Their conversation didn’t slide back to Kyungsoo for the rest of the session.

Baekhyun and Jongdae were paired up as usual, they were both on the same belt tier so they were also quite comfortable with each other. They partnered together since they weren’t afraid to push boundaries and test one another.

Baekhyun was very aware that Kyungsoo was watching his performance so he vowed not to go easy on Jongdae today. Not just because he wanted to win, but mainly because he felt like showing off a little, to try and impress Kyungsoo with his ability. He felt excited by it, the opportunity to show off a different side to him, one he hoped Kyungsoo would like.

Baekhyun ended up winning by one point. He had got Jongdae in an arm lock on the floor which sealed the deal for him. Once they’d finished, Jongdae grinned and uttered a small “Showoff,” under his breath as he left for the locker room. Baekhyun felt his ears turn a little red but punched him in the arm all the same.

“That was pretty cool to watch,” Kyungsoo praised when pretty much everyone else had filed out of the room, he approached him with an impressed smile.

“Thanks!” 

“You don’t vibrate as much when you’re expending all your energy on trying to bring someone else down.” Kyungsoo pointed out and Baekhyun had to let out a laugh, it was very true. He did tend to fidget a lot less when his brain was focused on a particular physical task, like Hapkido or any other sport. When he was just exercising his brain, his body was still itching to move around.

“It does focus me more… anything physical will stop me from _‘vibrating’_ as you say.” 

“Oh?” The small smile on Kyungsoo’s face was hard to read, “Would you show me some moves?” The request took Baekhyun aback, he’d not expected this part. For Kyungsoo to be so impressed with his skills that he’d want to learn himself. Though Baekhyun figured he was just being kind to his ego.

“You wanna learn Hapkido?” Baekhyun questioned, both eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Why not. You’re my tutor, you can teach me how to do sports too.”

“Okay, well its more of a discipline…”

“Whatever,” Kyungsoo waved his hand.

“The aim is for me to get you on the floor… and vice versa.” Baekhyun cleared his throat, “So I throw you or we could grapple…” Baekhyun was only listing off some of the ways the opponent could try and get him down, there were far too many for him to begin to explain to Kyungsoo, who didn’t really know the first thing about the sport.

“Grapple?” The way the corners of Kyungsoo’s lips had pulled up had Baekhyun feeling a little weird. He gulped and nodded.

“Yeah but its not the aim to hurt the other person, just to get them incapacitated.”

“So I could get you in a headlock and that would be fine?” 

“Well no… there are techniques- Hey!” Kyungsoo had jabbed him in the ribs so quickly Baekhyun doubled over in surprise. “Not like that!” He found himself laughing and Kyungsoo swooped in to get his other side. “Stop!”

But it was almost as though a switch had been flicked on in Kyungsoo, he kept diving and trying to poke him in the ribs or the stomach and Baekhyun had to use his defensive manoeuvres to stop him. Baekhyun found himself thoroughly enjoying the way their playing had lit up all of Kyungsoo’s best features. He had all of his teeth on show, under his heart-shaped smile, grinning like Baekhyun had never seen before. 

He had spent too long admiring Kyungsoo’s mouth and before he knew what had even happened he had lost his balance and was falling, grabbing Kyungsoo’s wrist as he did so the boy fell too. However, they hit the ground with Kyungsoo landing on top, Baekhyun still with his own hand clasped firmly around his wrist, and Kyungsoo’s thigh lodged between both of Baekhyun’s.

They stared at each other for what felt like hours. Baekhyun knew he was breathless, but Kyungsoo’s eyes had a flash of something else unreadable in them. Whatever it was, it had Baekhyun’s heart beating wildly and lungs desperate for fresh air.

They regained their composure fast enough, standing and laughing off the situation like the friends they were. Kyungsoo got to his feet first and offered his hand to pull Baekhyun up with.

“That wasn’t my best game.” Baekhyun dusted invisible lint off his uniform once he’d got his feet firmly on the ground.“I know! A complete newbie pinned you to the ground!” Kyungsoo enthused playfully. Baekhyun’s laugh sounded forced even to himself, probably because he was still trying to catch his breath from having Kyungsoo on top of him. Also because he kind of wanted it to happen again.

“You did not I fell and dragged you with me!” Baekhyun argued back, just as playfully.

“Yeah, yeah. You tell yourself that!” Kyungsoo literally shone as he laughed, all white teeth and heart shaped lips, as his eyes crinkled into crescent moons and Baekhyun felt a hard pang in his chest. “I’m going to need to change when we get back.” Kyungsoo was checking himself out, pulling his shirt out from his school trousers.

“Yeah- I, I mean me too. I’ll go now, I won’t be long.” He left Kyungsoo to wait for him outside the locker room.

Baekhyun tore off his uniform quickly and shoved it haphazardly back into his locker. He didn’t want to keep Kyungsoo waiting for long but he also desperately needed a shower, preferably cold since he could feel his body temperature rising as he replayed their scene in his mind.

How heavy Kyungsoo felt on top of him, how close their faces were, how good Kyungsoo smelled for a teenage boy. It was starting to make Baekhyun a little dizzy and he really needed to calm down.

Hurriedly he turned on the shower and blasted the cold water setting to full capacity. It made hims squeak in surprise and his teeth chatter but it was necessary. He washed himself at top speed and sped back to his locker to change.

He was met with Kyungsoo’s eyes tripling in size as he faced him in only a towel.

“Hey,” Baekhyun said a little awkwardly.

“Hey, I was wondering where you’d got to so I thought I’d come and check.” Kyungsoo’s gaze dropped to Baekhyun’s towel hanging around his hips and he could feel the heat start to rise to the surface again.

“Sorry,” Baekhyun breathed.

“I’ll just go back and wait outside.” Kyungsoo scooted off back in the direction of the gym, leaving Baekhyun just as warm as he was before his cold shower.

***

Later that evening, after their study session at Kyungsoo’s house. Baekhyun had sensed a little bit of an awkward atmosphere between the pair of them, that he had probably just imagined it all, since he was the one feeling a bit uncomfortable.

He could not stop thinking about their encounter, something so silly and so ordinary; yet Baekhyun’s mind had shot to the worst place it could. It was almost like a repeat of the hot music teacher scenario. Where Baekhyun couldn’t find the strength in him to make eye contact or function properly with the others eyes on him.

Kyungsoo seemed normal, or as normal as ever. Still asking Baekhyun to explain things in _‘plain human speak’_ and not _‘weird scientific-y shit’_ to him. To which Baekhyun had surprised himself in actually being able to without getting tongue-tied.

Now though, after parting ways and being left alone with his thoughts. Baekhyun had mulled it over on the bus ride home, at dinner and now as he had free time before he needed to sleep… He’d always _noticed_ Kyungsoo. Even when they’d first met he’d found him interesting, cute even and it was one of the biggest reasons he felt so awful for never having seen him before.

Sure he’d been an addition to Baekhyun’s class, but they’d been going through this school year for a fair amount of time already; how he could miss his big brown eyes, and thick soft lips that would give him wet dreams for days… he just really needed to pay more attention to his environment. Regardless, it had happened now and Kyungsoo had seemed to forgive him, even like him.

But definitely not in the way Baekhyun liked Kyungsoo.

No. Baekhyun’s heart rate hadn’t increased to 1000mph for no reason, his ears hadn’t shone the colour of a coca cola can for nothing. He hadn’t felt the heat also pool in his nether regions _just because he liked Kyungsoo as a friend_. Nope, Baekhyun had the hots for him, and he had it bad.

Now he was propped up on his soft pillows, hands shoved into his underwear grasping at his arousal and thinking about Kyungsoo. He needed to relieve the tension somehow, he couldn’t face him again in the morning if he had a raging hard on for him.

Baekhyun’s breath came in short pants. He groaned out loud, and immediately regretted it, Baekbeom was home from University and he was only in the next room. He stifled any noises he might accidentally make with his pillow. He was noisy even when he was pleasuring himself, something he just couldn’t control no matter how hard he bit on his knuckles.

Just remembering how his hair smelled as he lay on top go him had Baekhyun groaning again.

“Baekhyun?” Came his brothers voice from the other side of his door, rapping lightly on the wood, “Are you alright?” Baekhyun panicked, he had to think quickly.

“I’m fine, just pulled a muscle at practice,” He called back, hoping he didn’t sound as breathless as he was. Thankfully he heard his brother chuckle.

“Don’t strain yourself, if you need any help just ask!”

“Thanks, I’m sure I’ll be fine,”

“Okay.” Baekhyun waited as patiently as he could for his brothers footsteps to get further away before his hand was moving again. His eyes near enough rolled back into his head as he worked himself harder, now biting on his own lips to stop the moans from slipping through.

“Fuck,” He whispered with feeling, Kyungsoo’s smile swam before his eyes, “ _fuuuuuck_!” he wasn’t super imaginative when it came to steamy scenes he could get off to. He largely imagined things he could remember, like Kyungsoo on top of him in the middle of the gym, and his full lips pulling into that gorgeous smile. “Ah!” Baekhyun felt like arching his whole body off his bed at the image that flashed before his eyes, Kyungsoo on his knees in front of him, looking up through his hair, smirk replacing his bright smile.

He actually had to bite down on the pillow as he came, hand still frantic as he pulled himself through it. He’d never had such an intense orgasm from jerking off before, not one that left his legs shaking like this.

He almost felt unclean, how he’d used Kyungsoo in his mind to pleasure himself to. Though he couldn’t help it these days, the closer he got to him the more he found him pretty irresistible.

***

Baekhyun’s realisation that he definitely had a crush on his classmate was not making their time spent together any easier. Friday in the study hall was an experience to say the least. Baekhyun was not a stranger to liking someone, but he couldn’t deny the feeling he got in his belly when Kyungsoo looked at him now, was kind of like the feeling he got when he missed a stair on the staircase.

Today, Kyungsoo was wearing his glasses because Baekhyun had basically nagged him into it. Mainly because he was sick of Kyungsoo squinting at him and his notes, but also because he found them immeasurably cute on him. Baekhyun couldn’t help but enjoy it when Kyungsoo looked up at him with wide eyes, under the round frames to ask him a question. He enjoyed it, but maybe a little too much and his brain was finding it hard to think of anything other than how he had spent most of his weekend with his hands in his underwear.

“Are you feeling okay today?” Kyungsoo was staring at him again, Baekhyun coughed. He frowned at the textbook he was trying to read.

“I’m fine, why?”

“Well, for starters you don’t seem to be breathing normally. It sounds fast, are you asthmatic?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“That’s the other thing, you’re looking a bit flushed… are you sure you’re not sick?”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Baekhyun insisted, although his internal organs were doing flips because Kyungsoo had definitely noticed his drastic change in behaviour, “Stop trying to get out of studying by making me see a doctor.”

“Well if you’re not sick… it’s something else.” Baekhyun shrugged it off, but his sharp gaze didn’t drop, “You’re also unusually still.”

Baekhyun sighed, playing up the idea that his interrogation was getting annoying, when in reality he was trying his very best to restrain himself from clearing the desk and launching himself at Kyungsoo, “What’s your diagnosis then?”

“You’re trying to keep yourself still, I can tell… there’s something going on in your brain thats overriding your need to move.” Kyungsoo looked like an analyst, with his glasses and piercing stare and the way he was picking up on the most subtle of things. The small shift of Kyungsoo’s eyes to his left wrist didn’t go unnoticed.

“Why Kyungsoo, it almost sounds like you’re learning something about the human body.”

“Nope. Just your body.” He said quite simply, Baekhyun blinked trying to catch his breath. Kyungsoo had been paying attention to his body, the thought alone was causing the heat to rapidly rise to the surface. It hadn’t missed Kyungsoo’s attention, “Do you… like me paying attention to your body?” He prodded, a little too close for comfort. The intent of his questioning was unreadable, Baekhyun had no idea how to react.

“Erm what kind of question is that?” He tried playing it off cooly, though it came out far too shaky for that.

“Just curious, I don’t think you need to answer that anyway,” Kyungsoo replied, hiding a small smile as he refocused on his work. Baekhyun could have spluttered a thousand excuses at that moment, but he couldn’t find the words.

“I think you should tell me what you mean.” Baekhyun said, feigning the confidence he needed because oh boy this could all go so terribly wrong. He liked Kyungsoo, that was for sure, and he didn’t seem the gossiping type; but he was worried that if word got out about what his sexual preference might be, then the last few months of school could become his worst.

For better or worse, Kyungsoo leaned over his desk onto his elbows and into Baekhyun’s personal space. Baekhyun gulped but was not going to back down, if Kyungsoo _did_ have a problem with him then he could never see him again and just fail his exams.

“I just mean… it seems to be that you _like_ my attention.” His tone was soft but his meaning was clear. He must have known Baekhyun liked boys, he just wasn’t saying it out loud, but the intent was still evading him. Was he asking because he was curious or was he asking because he was also inclined to like men too?

“I should, I am teaching you Biology after all. If you didn’t pay attention to me then we’d have a problem.” Baekhyun responded quickly. Kyungsoo looked down at his desk and chuckled, it was a lovely sound that warmed Baekhyun up from his heart to his extremities.

It seemed like the conversation was over, as it teetered into a territory Baekhyun wasn’t sure he was 100% ready to admit to anyone yet. Kyungsoo didn’t seem to have anymore questions about Baekhyun’s current behaviour, he thanked the gods silently that it was over.

After another few moments, Kyungsoo piped up again, “Do you know about all of the stuff they _don’t_ teach us in lessons?” His eyes were searching Baekhyun’s, wide and curious, but with a hint of a challenge lurking behind them.

“What do you mean?” 

“I mean like…” Kyungsoo’s eyes flickered to the door and lowered his voice, “you know… _Sex Ed_.” Baekhyun took a sharp breath in, one that seemed to have the corners of Kyungsoo’s mouth quirking but his face still spoke of innocent curiosity rather than any sort of mischief.

“I know what I’ve read online.” Baekhyun clarified, feeling himself start to sweat a little at the given conversation. Kyungsoo tilted his head to the side, giving a half shrug.

“Sure we’ve all _read_ stuff. Have you ever…?” He said slowly as he rolled his hand in midair, letting Baekhyun fill in the gaps on his own. That caught Baekhyun completely off guard. He had, in his head, the idea that Kyungsoo was just a surly loner and not interested in having a relationship with anyone, though he was also a teenage boy and what teenage boy didn’t think about sex?

“Me? Yeah… a few times” Baekhyun answered, not entirely sure why he was sharing this information with him. He felt a little swirl of pride at Kyungsoo’s surprised look. It felt kind of exciting, like having this time to talk about sexy things as his own personal way of flirting without him actually realising he was.

“With who?” Baekhyun stilled. His sexual experience was a little iffy to think about. It was with a guy from a neighbouring school, someone Chanyeol knew, one thing led to another and Baekhyun found himself getting sucked off by him in the closet. Each time he and this guy would meet at parties they’d end up in a bathroom, or hidden away with their hands down each others pants and their tongues down each others throats.

“No one you know,” He said vaguely, “What about you?” He tried to act as causal as possible in returning the question, hoping it didn’t sound too prying.

“Yeah, I have. Once.” Kyungsoo shrugged, like he did with everything else as though it were no big deal. An odd jealous feeling washed over him for a moment, and the terrible thought that Kyungsoo had no friends in this school so how could he possibly have had sex already, also crossed his mind.

“Anyone I know?”

“No. She doesn’t go to this school,” Baekhyun couldn’t help the drooping feeling in his stomach when he heard the word ‘she’. He knew it, Kyungsoo was straight and he had a crush on him. Of course that’s how this would pan out.

“Oh,” Baekhyun drummed his fingers on his thigh. Baekhyun tried to get back to reading their recommended reading, but the words were starting to bleed together and all he could see was a mass of black ink in front of him.

“I didn’t enjoy it really, if I’m being honest,” Baekhyun looked up into his eyes to find Kyungsoo’s already trained on him.

“Why not?” Baekhyun was amazed his voice was even audible with how dry his mouth had just gone.

“Inexperience? I don’t know, it didn’t feel right,” Kyungsoo started to bite his lip and Baekhyun couldn’t help but stare, his fingers now stilled on his leg, “If you have any tips…”

Baekhyun nearly laughed out loud, “I don’t think you want to hear what my tips are,” He couldn’t exactly give Kyungsoo advice on sucking someone off, since ladies didn’t have dicks.

“No? I would have thought you’d at least be good at kissing.” Baekhyun shook his head, because Kyungsoo couldn’t have just let his eyes slip down to Baekhyun’s mouth on the word ‘kissing’, but that’s exactly what he did.

“I am very good at kissing,” Baekhyun said cockily, faking his bravado even though he felt like his insides had turned to jelly, “but kissing isn’t sex.”

“It all adds to it though… right? Or have I been doing that wrong too?” This conversation was beginning to send his heart into a wild frenzy, was Kyungsoo asking what Baekhyun thought he was asking? Or was it just the fact that Baekhyun wanted to kiss him so much that his brain wasn’t making the right connections.

“Are you asking me to tutor you in kissing?”

“We _are_ learning Biology,” Kyungsoo had scooted his seat as far forward as it could go, leaning forward so far that he was in danger of falling face-first into him. Baekhyun narrowed his eyes, still unsure what he was asking exactly, did he want Baekhyun to show him? Or explain it blow for blow? The look in his eyes wasn’t giving a damn thing away and all Baekhyun wanted to do was grab him.

His body was telling him to dive forwards and kiss Kyungsoo senseless, for his own pleasure and to teach him a lesson for being so confusing. Though, testing the water he turned so his arms were resting on Kyungsoo’s desk too, so that they were face to face, closer than classmates should be. Baekhyun felt his heartbeat peak again when Kyungsoo’s eyes landed on his lips for the second time, before flickering back up into his eyes. He looked a little nervous, the longer Baekhyun studied him. Surely, that meant he was waiting for Baekhyun to make the first move. Kyungsoo was reeling him in and Baekhyun wasn’t sure if he knew it or not.

Finally, “Should I explain it to you? Or do you want me to show you?” Baekhyun asked, breathless and terrified that he was misreading the situation, but thus far Kyungsoo hadn’t turned away from him. It was an excruciating moment, as Kyungsoo lifted his hand to take off his glasses, giving Baekhyun’s lips another longing look before he answered.

“Show me.”

The green light nearly had Baekhyun whimpering, but he kept himself together. He glanced down to Kyungsoo’s gorgeous thick lips and before the other could even smirk he surged forward, grabbing his tie to keep hold of him and captured them. Just a simple kiss, soft but firm and quick.

Kyungsoo blinked when he pulled back after a couple of moments, looking a little shocked before he cracked a smile, “Is that all? I thought you’d be a little more… aggressive?”

“Stand up,” Baekhyun commanded as he did so himself, he wasn’t going to let Kyungsoo think that it was already over, he had so much more to give. Kyungsoo stood up, a little unsurely but Baekhyun had grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him forward, Kyungsoo’s shock was back but he hadn’t seen anything yet. Baekhyun backed him up a few paces so his back hit the bare wall behind them. “I didn’t say I was finished.”

Kyungsoo gasped into his mouth when Baekhyun pressed him against the solid wall, not letting go of his wrist, he pinned it above his head and grabbed the other one to do the same. Kyungsoo had agreed to let him _show_ him what kissing him meant. It meant Baekhyun was in charge and Baekhyun was going to have him squirming beneath him, no matter his sexuality.

He kissed him harder, grasping his wrists a little nastier than he would usually have done it but he had a few pent-up feelings he felt Kyungsoo should really be aware of. The closed mouth kisses didn’t last for long as Baekhyun’s lips coaxed Kyungsoo’s open. He rolled his body forwards so their crotches barely rubbed together at the same time he pressed his tongue into his mouth. He felt Kyungsoo groan as they made contact and felt his knees weaken beneath them. 

Finally Baekhyun relinquished his hold on Kyungsoo’s wrists and the other boy let them fall to hold onto his shoulders. They didn’t come up for air for a long time, the room was filled with the obscene sounds of grunts and the slick sound of their tongues clashing until they finally broke apart. Kyungsoo sucked in the air as though he were on the verge of suffocating and Baekhyun didn’t let him move from the trapped position he had him in against the wall.

“I underestimated you,” Kyungsoo said shakily, still trying to regulate his breathing.

“You did, but you kept up well.” Baekhyun’s voice was a little deeper than usual, husky and raw as he was now turned on from the whole exchange. Kyungsoo seemed to shiver under his gaze, that he couldn’t help at the moment, his lips were itching to meet his again and he had to use all of his will power to let him go.

Baekhyun stepped back, letting Kyungsoo slump a little against the wall. A moment of regret washed over Baekhyun as he realised what he’d just done. He’d just kissed Kyungsoo, a classmate and straight guy, against the wall of their classroom. Panic washed over him as the thought that they could have been _caught_ crossed his mind.

Baekhyun rubbed his eyes, unable to explain what he’d just done even to himself. Kyungsoo had a strong pull on him, and he was susceptible to succumbing to any advance the boy might make on him. Though Baekhyun thought he had more self control than that, it scared him how easily he jumped right into this situation without thinking it through.

But damn if it didn’t feel good. His heart was beating fast, and he could still taste Kyungsoo on his tongue.

“I’m sorry,” he said before he could stop himself. Kyungsoo offered him a questioning look, but stood up straighter.

“Why?” 

“I shouldn’t have just-“ Baekhyun struggled to find the correct word, “ _jumped_ on you like that. It’s- I’m not like that.”

“Right,” It sounded a lot like Kyungsoo did not believe him. Baekhyun bit his lip, feeling awkward. “Look, I asked, you gave me an answer… it’s not a big deal.” But there was an unspoken _‘It’s not like you have a shot with me’_ lingering in the air. Baekhyun wasn’t sure how to take that. It was a strange mix between guilt and shock, guilty he’d taken advantage of Kyungsoo but also a little shocked because he almost felt like the tables had turned.

Did Kyungsoo know he may have a crush on him? Was he just using that to his own advantage to gain skill points, before he really used them on someone else? Baekhyun’s stomach flopped messily, he didn’t feel so well.

“Okay,” was all he said, instead.

***

Life got progressively weirder with Kyungsoo. Baekhyun had thought they would have at least had a conversation about what had happened when they met up to go to Kyungsoo’s house on Tuesday night, but Kyungsoo had made no move to address the situation at all. It was almost as though it didn’t happen and Baekhyun didn’t know which was worse.

He had a crush on a straight boy, who had let him kiss him…

It was even more difficult than the whole gym fiasco because that’s all he thought about when he looked into his eyes; so it was hard to concentrate on what he should actually be teaching him. What was really eating away at his insides wasn’t just the fact they’d kissed, but the fact Kyungsoo had asked him specifically do show him how to do it. 

Why? What for? Was Kyungsoo like him? Did he feel more comfortable around Baekhyun now, so he could ask that favour of him? Or was he curious? Did he like him too? All of these thoughts were firing more rapidly than the electrical signals his brain sent to his muscles to make him move.

It got no better as the week progressed. Baekhyun learned to shove the memory of how soft Kyungsoo’s lips were to the back of his mind and ignore the burning questions he desperately wanted answers to; but then Kyungsoo started acting a little more than cold towards him.

He didn’t get a reply on Thursday when Baekhyun text him to ask if he was ready to study, and should he come straight over after practice as usual. The whole thing had left him completely unsure, so when Kyungsoo didn’t text back Baekhyun decided he didn’t want him at his house and didn’t go. It was probably for the best anyway.

When Baekhyun cornered him at lunch on Friday afternoon, to talk about a potential weekend session, as this week had been less than productive, Kyungsoo had given him a hard stare and a blunt “No.” and nothing more. Leaving Baekhyun stood in the middle of the courtyard like a lost lamb.

“Did you find him?” Chanyeol asked brightly as Baekhyun threw himself into his usual seat opposite after getting his food.

“Yeah.” He grumbled, sad due to Kyungsoo’s behaviour and so hungry his stomach was getting angry at him.

“Its really amazing you know, I assumed you _didn’t_ want to waste any of your free time tutoring some hopeless student. Yet here you are, all conscientious still making plans with him!” Jongdae quipped, cheeky grin across his lips. Baekhyun side-eyed him, contemplating whether or not to just slap his chopsticks right out of his hand. He thought better of it after a moment of inner turmoil.

“He needs it. But no, I’m not…” Baekhyun hesitated on whether to tell his friends the truth or not, “He’s busy.” He didn’t want the pair of them finding out Kyungsoo had left him high and dry. He didn’t think they’d particularly be bothered by it, but Baekhyun didn’t want to hear the two of them slag him off any more than they already did.

It was wishful thinking on Baekhyun’s part, “Oh well, he’s probably busy plotting the end of the world or something.” He let out a heavy sigh, trying to indicate that he was not in the mood for jokes.

“He’s not that bad.” Baekhyun felt like he were a broken record when he talked to his friends about Kyungsoo. He knew Jongdae only did it to wind him up, but it made it no less tedious to listen to.

“When we find your mutilated corpse in a ditch, it won’t be beneath me to say _‘I told you so’_.” Chanyeol guffawed at the joke and they high-fived each other across the table.

“Ah but Jongdae, Baekhyun has to be nice to his student, no matter his murderous tendencies.” 

“Don’t call him that.” Baekhyun said quickly, feeling the heat rise to the surface. He wasn’t going to admit that an obscene image crossed his mind just then and had to quickly remind himself that porn was not real life.

“What did you need to see him for, couldn’t you have just text him?” Baekhyun was not going to let it slip that Kyungsoo purposefully ignored his last couple of texts.

“Sometimes he doesn’t reply…” Baekhyun lied quickly, feeling like every question he’d answer honestly would give away that he had some feelings for him. 

“You’d think he’d check his phone more with one friend texting him.”

“Stop.” 

“We’re only kidding, don’t be so sensitive.” 

Baekhyun felt a little more than stressed out. He pulled at the knot on his bracelet to undo it and unwrapped the leather until it was just one long piece of material on his lap. He may have not practiced knots for so long but he really felt like he needed to be a little distracted right now, before he drove himself insane.

“I’m surprised that thing doesn’t stink,” Jongdae commented offhandedly. Baekhyun grunted at him and continued to tie every knot he had learned in the order he learned them. It took him the whole lunch period, with Chanyeol mentioned loudly that he didn’t remember the last time Baekhyun was so quiet.

Baekhyun didn’t hear him properly though, and continued to mess with the thing until one of his teachers pointed out to the whole class that Baekhyun’s mouth hadn’t opened once during the lesson and if he was feeling okay. He felt a bit embarrassed as the whole class laughed at him, joining in awkwardly as if he found it funny too. Only to meet Kyungsoo’s eyes again and have to look resolutely away. It felt like there was a black hole in the pit of his stomach that only became active when Kyungsoo ignored him like this.

He really wished Do Kyungsoo didn’t have that kind of effect on him. Or that he at least knew why he’d been so cold to him.

*** 

_**Do Kyungsoo**  
You were quiet in class today._

Baekhyun’s phone vibrated later on that evening, Baekhyun had taken his earlier rejection to mean they should leave their study session for the evening again. So he was extremely confused that Kyungsoo would be the one to text him first.

_**Byun Baekhyun**  
That happens sometimes. When I’m thinking about something other than the class._

He replied, hoping it would entice a reaction out of Kyungsoo so Baekhyun had the green light to ask him why he decided he didn’t exist today. The reply came almost instantaneously.

_**Do Kyungsoo**  
Oh? What were you thinking about?_

For some reason, Baekhyun took a nervous glance at his bedroom door. Probably hoping that no one was going to walk in without knocking. He frowned at his phone for a couple of minutes.

_**Byun Baekhyun**  
I was thinking about how much of a dick you are._

No. He deleted the text and went back to formulating his reply now biting on his bracelet in frustration.

 _I was thinking about our kiss-_ He wrote, but still was not satisfied with what he actually wanted to say. He wanted to convey all of his confusion and frustration in a text, but that was damn near impossible to do if the other person had no idea how to read it. Maybe he should just be blunt, Kyungsoo seemed to get a hold of bluntness.

_Honestly? I was confused as to what I did to turn you so cold towards me. Do you hate me now or something?_

He hit send before he could regret it. He had to wait a little longer before Kyungsoo replied. He watched the little ellipsis appear and disappear as if he were writing a long essay, or he also didn’t know how to reply and was deleting his messages. Baekhyun bit at his thumb instead of his bracelet as to not damage it any further than he already had.

_**Do Kyungsoo**  
It’s not you. You didn’t do anything wrong, I’m just a weirdo. You know?_

It was simple and yet it wrenched Baekhyun’s heart straight down into his stomach. He should have guessed Kyungsoo was finding it difficult to talk to him after he’d kissed him. He was more than likely straight and curious as to what it would be like to kiss a boy. A very willing and obvious boy at that, he probably regretted it the longer he let it sit in his brain and didn’t want to face Baekhyun anymore.

_**Byun Baekhyun**  
You’re not a weirdo. Don’t be so weird._

He added a cute emoji to signal that he was of course joking with him and he shouldn’t be so hard on himself. He was curious and that was normal for someone who was still trying to find themselves. It wasn’t like Baekhyun was ignorant to how he’d be feeling, it was weird enough for him when he’d realised it about himself.

_Don’t beat yourself up about it. I’m not going to tell anyone what happened and I’m not judging you for it. Let’s go back to being cool. Yeah?_

He added before he hit the send button. He had calmed down considerably since he’d got home. Baekhyun got up from his desk chair to head for the comfort of his bed. He stretched out getting himself comfortable and finally letting his muscles unclench just as his phone buzzed again.

_**Do Kyungsoo**  
Alright. Tutoring on Monday?_

**_Byun Baekhyun_ ** _  
You got it!_

He may have gone a little bit overboard with the emoji’s but resolving things with Kyungsoo had made him feel like he could float above the clouds.

***

It wasn’t until the following Wednesday that things got a little out of hand with Kyungsoo again. Monday had been uneventful, Baekhyun had taught him all about enzymes which Kyungsoo seemed to have no interest in, but looked like he was listening to it intently anyway. Especially when Baekhyun sung him the little song he’d made up to remember them all.

They ended up singing it far too loudly in Kyungsoo’s house on Tuesday, but Mrs Do never missed a chance to praise Baekhyun for finally teaching her son some actual _‘useful knowledge’_ , to which Kyungsoo’s mood decreased again until Baekhyun complimented him on his singing voice.

Now, they were sat in the Library so Baekhyun could locate a book on Microorganisms, which was their next topic of study. He knew the basics of what they needed, but Baekhyun did always like to get some background reading done so he could understand it a little better.

They’d sat in a comfortable silence for a good half an hour, watching as a lot of students came in the find the book they needed and check out again, most of them rarely stayed any longer than that. So it was mainly just the two of them in their area.

“I’m curious,” Kyungsoo started, cutting into the silence with a small whisper. Baekhyun liked it when he asked questions, he felt like it kind of validated him as a tutor.

“What about? I mean if you don’t understand it I can try to explain-”

“I want to conduct an experiment, if thats okay?” Baekhyun frowned. They were in a library, there was no equipment for them to conduct any experiments, not to mention he didn’t exactly know _how_ they would go about it.

“Erm I mean there isn’t an experiment we could do, you’ve just got to sort of remember-” Baekhyun began but was cut off immediately by Kyungsoo jumping out of his seat and grabbing his wrist. “What th-?”

“Come this way.” Kyungsoo dragged Baekhyun along with him, he pulled him down rows and rows of books to the deepest depths of the library, the strong smell of old books getting heavier in the air. Their school probably had the biggest, the area was so big the whole thing was like a maze of information and knowledge. As Kyungsoo pulled him along, Baekhyun tried to keep up with the all the turns he was taking so they wouldn’t be lost.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see, I think it will help me remember,” Kyungsoo threw back over his shoulder. Baekhyun couldn’t deny he was intrigued, and a little impressed that he may have ignited the thirst for knowledge into Kyungsoo after all. He was more exhilarated now, maybe Kyungsoo had a book he wanted Baekhyun to look at with him, the possibilities popped into Baekhyun’s over-zealous mind as they continued.

Kyungsoo stopped abruptly, at what looked like the darkest corner of the library he could find. Baekhyun watched him nod his head before he turned around and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, pulling him roughly forwards to attach his lips to Baekhyun’s.

Baekhyun was in shock, still with his eyes wide open and with zero clue as to what on earth was going through Kyungsoo’s mind. Once again, he had no time to react as Kyungsoo shoved him into a shelf of books, rattling the bookcase a little. Baekhyun opened his mouth to ask him what the hell was going on but Kyungsoo had already recaptured his lips.

His treacherous body was reacting all wrongly to how he probably _should_ be, he wanted to push Kyungsoo away and demand an answer from him. He wanted to kiss Kyungsoo _after_ he’d asked why he had he been so cold towards him for the past week or so? How he felt about him? Instead he was finding himself with his hands locked in Kyungsoo’s soft hair, kissing him back and letting the blood rush southwards washing away any common sense he had.

He was reacting like any normal teenager would. His dick was starting to get hard the longer Kyungsoo licked into his mouth, eliciting tiny moans from the back of his throat because fuck it felt like every nerve was on fire and Kyungsoo was soothing the pain with his tongue.

Kyungsoo’s hands were everywhere, in his hair, on his chest, even down to his backside; it was hard to keep up with how enthusiastic he was, not to mention it was causing Baekhyun’s knees to buckle beneath him. Until of course they landed right on his growing erection and he gasped to break the kiss.

“What are you _doing_?” He hissed grabbing the bookshelf for purchase, terrified someone was going to find them, his eyes flickered to the end of the row just in case. Kyungsoo offered him only a smug look. He must have known exactly how Baekhyun felt about him. Why else would Baekhyun be letting this happen, and not push him away before socking him in the mouth for it, if Kyungsoo didn’t know he could get away with it?

“An experiment.” He said simply. Taking his time to outline the shape of Baekhyun’s cock in his trousers, Baekhyun bit down on his lip as his body unconsciously bucked up into the touch, giving Kyungsoo ever more reason to smirk at him.

“We’re supposed to be using this time to study…” Baekhyun breathed half-heartedly as the sensation was beginning to cloud his better judgement.

“We are. I wanted to see if you could still explain the characteristics of microorganisms to me, whilst I gave you a hand job.” The look in Kyungsoo’s eyes was wicked. 

“What?! Are you crazy?” Baekhyun spluttered.

“I think I’ll remember it better this way,” He sung directly into Baekhyun’s ear. He had to stifle the sounds that were making their way out of his mouth, because Kyungsoo was wasting no time in undoing Baekhyun’s fly and sticking his hands into his underwear.

“So this is how you want to learn?” Baekhyun questioned even though his voice was now hitting notes he previously didn’t know that he could.

“I just want to see if its possible when I’m…” Kyungsoo gave him a hard tug that had another embarrassing noise falling from his lips, “You might not have long considering how hard you are now.” Baekhyun whimpered, there was a pain in his back where it was digging into bookshelves and he was in a state of constant fear that someone would find them; but he could not bring himself to push Kyungsoo away when deep down, he yearned for this.

“You’re insane, you know?” Baekhyun felt the tips of his ears heating up.

“Yeah, so explain it to me.” Baekhyun took another cursory glance towards the end of the row. He took a long, shuddering breath and looked into Kyungsoo’s eyes again. He was far worse than Baekhyun had originally thought before he’d even met him, not only was he always thinking about sex but he was including Baekhyun into the fantasy, and there wasn’t a damn thing Baekhyun wanted to do to stop it.

“Okay,” He finally said just as Kyungsoo’s wrist twisted the right way, “ffuck, okay. So the major characteristics of microorganisms are, ah… Morphological characteristics - oh!” Baekhyun was probably only able to recite the information because it was so deeply lodged in his brain, if he hadn’t known any of this, there would have been no way he could continue. “L-like the cell shape, size, and - ah!!” He tightened his grip in Kyungsoo’s hair, “Structure; cell arrangement; the p-possession of special-!” He stuttered, trying to breathe again because Kyungsoo had him climbing up the bookshelf, “structure and developmental… _fuck_!- types,” Baekhyun’s eyes were beginning to roll back into his head, he was close and he could tell Kyungsoo knew it. The other boy sped up sensing the tension about to burst, “T-the staining reactions; and the motility and flagellar _arrangement._ ” He tensed up and covered his mouth with his hand to stop the deep groan from being so loud as he came.

“Impressive,” He heard Kyungsoo comment as he slumped forward into him, his hand was still down the front of his pants, moving leisurely until Baekhyun had to physically stop him.

“You’re the worst, fuck.”

“I think I’ll definitely remember that though.”

“Wha-?” But Baekhyun didn’t even have time to finish before Kyungsoo had leant in to kiss him again, this time a little slower and more gentle. Baekhyun was confused to say the least, as he kissed him back, he wondered if this was going to be the last time he’d ever kiss Kyungsoo.

***

Three more weeks and three separate occasions where Kyungsoo had decided he wanted to use Baekhyun as his own sexual play-thing. What bothered Baekhyun was not that Kyungsoo was clearly using him, but more of the fact he was _letting_ him. His heart wouldn’t let him push him away whenever he grabbed him on the way to study hall and kissed him breathless in the bathroom stalls, or that one time they ended up in the janitors closet and Kyungsoo’s hands found his dick again.

It was getting on Baekhyun’s nerves though, each time he’d try and talk about it with Kyungsoo, the other boy would shut down and refuse to answer his texts for days on end. The last time, Baekhyun had got so frustrated with him that he turned up on his doorstep. His mother, pleasant as always to Baekhyun, happily let him in with the annoying “Keep filling up his air head for us!” as he stomped into his room to demand answers.

Well, Kyungsoo just looked so soft in his glasses and black sweater, and so startled that all the righteous wind blew out of Baekhyun’s sails. Once again, he found himself lying on his back, on Kyungsoo’s bed as his classmate experimentally licked and sucked on his treacherously hard dick. Embarrassingly even giving the boy instructions on what to do!

Baekhyun knew he had more than just a crush on Kyungsoo. He was 99% sure he’d have stopped all this nonsense the first time it happened in the library if he wasn’t falling for the boy. He _liked_ Kyungsoo, he liked his smile and his sense of humour. He liked his singing voice and the fact they’d bonded over a shared love of music. He liked the fact Kyungsoo stopped whatever he was doing and listened to what Baekhyun had to say, he liked that he was teaching him _something_. The only problem was, he didn’t like that he had no idea where he stood with him.

Kyungsoo never gave a single trace of evidence away that he liked him too. It almost always seemed like he was distant, uncaring even. Baekhyun refused to believe that of him though, which was another reason all of this was complete bullshit.

Now, it was less than week until their final exams and Baekhyun was too busy moping to care. At lunch, Chanyeol and Jongdae were bickering about how best they could cheat their way into University without having to actually take the test, and Baekhyun hadn’t realised there was a shift in conversation topic until Chanyeol was nudging him with a big grin on his face.

“Oh I didn’t tell you Baekhyun, I heard Kim Taeyeon was talking about how cute you were the other day.” 

“Oh? Great,” Baekhyun said distractedly, still twirling the ends of his bracelet between his fingers. Still thinking about Kyungsoo and how, even today he’d ignored his existence.

“I’d have thought you would be a little more enthusiastic about it. She is a goddess after all.”

“Yeah…” Baekhyun sighed, feeling too sorry for himself to realise who he was talking to, “I’m not interested.”

“Jesus, Baek,” Chanyeol huffed out a laugh, “What are you, gay?” It was as though lightening had struck Baekhyun back into the real world, he looked up to find both of his friends laughing at Chanyeol’s joke. 

Baekhyun didn’t reply, but offered him a look, one of apprehension and fear of being rejected by his friends for what he was. He’d been wanting to tell them for a while now, but no time ever seemed right, he watched the realisation dawn on their faces as he kept his silence.

“Seriously?” Jongdae lowered his voice and himself closer to the table.

“No…” He answered too quickly, instinct had taught him to lie about his preference, but these were his friends he was talking to. He sighed heavily, “Yes…” he’d finally admitted it, he’d told his two best friends what he’d been keeping secret from them for so long. He was prepared to curl in on himself and have them leave if they wanted to but the pair of them just sat with their mouths hanging slightly open. “Don’t sit around catching flies.”

“Sorry,” It was Jongdae who recovered first, he looked to Chanyeol who only offered him a shrug back, “I mean I just didn’t expect that sort of admission on a Friday afternoon.” Chanyeol barked out a loud laugh before he quietened himself down to giggle into his hands, Baekhyun cracked a small smile too.

“That actually makes a lot of sense…” Chanyeol said nodding, after he had regained his composure and the desire to eat. He shovelled some more food into his mouth before carrying on, “When you think about it,” He said thickly.

“Swallow your food first, Baekhyun won’t fancy you if you have no manners,” Jongdae quipped and Baekhyun finally relaxed fully.

“Shut up,” He swatted at his friend, who dodged him with a squawk. “I don’t fancy Chanyeol anyway, not my type.”

“You know you could have told us sooner.” Jongdae said as he bumped him lightly with his shoulder. Baekhyun felt a little overwhelmed at the acceptance they were showing him.

“I- I know, I just…”

“That’s not an easy thing to talk about Jongdae.” Chanyeol tsked, pointing his chopsticks directly at him, “Especially with you, who is the biggest horn dog on the planet.”

“No I’m not!” Jongdae protested, his voice came out a lot more shrill than usual and both Chanyeol and Baekhyun covered their ears with their hands. 

“You’re always asking Baekhyun to check girls out with you… well now we know the reason he won’t.” Chanyeol reasoned, laughing at his whining. Jongdae had a very adorable way of whining and pouting like a child and turning it into a charm.

“Should I scope out hot guys for you? I’m not uncomfortable with appreciating a good-looking guy you know.” He’d said the last part so loud that a couple of stragglers on the end of the queue for food spun round in confusion.

“Your quest to get me laid is very honourable, Jongdae.” Baekhyun kept his voice low.

“…But?” Jongdae urged, loading up his plate with more kimchi but not breaking eye contact.

Baekhyun took a deep breath, “But… I think… I like someone.” It was Jongdae and Chanyeol’s turn to glance at each other knowingly, it made Baekhyun feel a tiny bit uneasy. He shifted in the uncomfortable seat, rearranging his sleeves to distract himself from their knowing looks.

“Is it your student, per chance?” 

“Don’t call him that,” He repeated his sentiments from weeks previous, “I’m not some sort of pervy teacher.” He ignored how hard his heart was pounding just from the thought.

“Maybe he’s into that kinky shit.” Chanyeol winked.

“Or maybe he’s straight and it would freak him the fuck out.” Baekhyun said, not daring to tell the others that he and Kyungsoo had already been having secret hand job sessions in the abandoned parts of the school library. They’d already been overloaded with information already, and really Baekhyun wasn’t sure where he stood in terms of Kyungsoo.

One minute they were groping each other and finding quiet corners to kiss in, and the next minute Kyungsoo was distant and closed off. Kyungsoo was blowing hot and cold and it was driving Baekhyun to the brink of insanity.

“I dunno, I get a gay vibe off him.” Jongdae shrugged. Baekhyun sighed, he could see what Jongdae was trying to do and it was very sweet of him.

“Yeah, something about him doesn’t entirely scream heterosexual at me…” Chanyeol agreed.

“Thanks guys, but it’s just a crush.” Baekhyun mumbled, giving them a wry smile. 

“Well why don’t you ask him if he wants to date you?” Jongdae suggested, shrugging. Baekhyun nearly laughed out loud, as if it would just be that easy. Baekhyun wasn’t sure he could take that kind of rejection, considering Kyungsoo’s current behaviour.

“You could pass it off as a joke if he says no.” Chanyeol added, coming up with solutions to make him feel better, he really did appreciate their efforts.

“Yeah I guess.” He chuckled, the amusement didn’t last long though. His heart was hurting and he just wanted to crawl into bed and turn himself into a sad burrito.

“You look sad, have you already asked him?” Jongdae pressed gently, leaving a comforting hand on his shoulder in case Baekhyun needed a hug. Jongdae was a very considerate human being at the best of times. Baekhyun didn't want to attract any attention from their peers so he just shook his head.

“No.”

“Then do it, what have you got to lose?” 

“I guess.”

“Hey and if he says no, we’ll just find you another scary-as-fuck guy for you to go out with!” Chanyeol cowered as Baekhyun made to throw his whole bag at him. It looked like Kyungsoo was having a bigger affect on his life than he could ever imagine.

***

Later on that night Baekhyun tossed the advice his friends had given him, over in his mind as he helped his mother prepare dinner. What did he have to lose? Well, he could confront him and Kyungsoo would throw up the walls Baekhyun had so painstakingly chipped away at over the last few months, and Baekhyun would lose him as a friend.

The dim thought that they weren’t really friends flickered across Baekhyun’s mind. He dismissed that immediately. They _were_ friends, it was undeniable no matter how Baekhyun felt about him. He’d opened Kyungsoo up to him, and he’d changed his first impression at least.

His heart started to ache at the thought his feelings might get in the way of them being friends. However, Baekhyun had to also think of his own well-being, he didn’t want to let Kyungsoo get away with playing with him like this. He had to stand up for himself, no matter how much he wanted Kyungsoo’s hands all over him.

He was distracted enough to not hear when his mother was talking to him.

“Baekhyun? Darling?” He finally tuned in, blinking rapidly. He turned to her, she was standing wth a few spring onions in one hand and a bowl of garlic in the other. He took them from her with a small smile, but she still regarded him closely.

“Sorry, I was miles away,” He apologised, getting straight to work on cutting the onions. He could feel her worried eyes on him as he cut through the first one a moved onto the next. 

“Are you feeling okay, you’ve had that faraway look in your eyes all evening.” She asked gently, standing beside him and placing a hand on his shoulder in a comforting gesture. Baekhyun sighed, his problems were starting to rise to the surface and become clear as day on his face. One of these days he’d have to tell his parents about his preferences too, but he thought he had quite enough to deal with at the moment.

“Yeah I’m just thinking.” He said vaguely. His mother squeezed his shoulder and let him go. They worked silently for a few moments. Baekhyun had finished with the onions, and moved on to peeling the garlic by the time she addressed him again.“Baekbeom told me you’ve been working really hard. He’s worried about you too.”

“I’m okay… school is… stressful.” Baekhyun told her. That was one way to put it. 

“And you’ve taken Kyungsoo on. He seems like a lovely kid.” Baekhyun tensed at the sound of his name. Both of his parents really liked Kyungsoo, even though they’d only met him a grand total of once. His mother always loved meeting new people and seeing Baekhyun happy with a new friend was probably the highlight of her day, she then constantly gushed about how polite he was and how lovely it was to see a new face.

“He is.” Baekhyun let his mind wander to thoughts of Kyungsoo. How in just a few short months, he'd lit up Baekhyun's life like a Christmas tree with his cute smile and round eyes. His mind was so busy picturing Kyungsoo at his best, he'd not paid any attention to the little garlic clove he'd been cutting and nearly sliced through the ring finger on his left hand. “Agh shi-” He stopped himself before he swore in front of his mother.

“Oh! Goodness you’re bleeding!” His mother cried, ushering him over to the sink, keeping his hand elevated.

“Ah, wasn’t paying attention.” He winced as she stuck his finger under the faucet, cleaning it before instructing him to stay still whilst she got the first aid kit “Sorry…” She came back with a very soft look on her face.

“You’re going to have to clear your head of whatever is bugging you.” She said, turning off the spray of water and drying his hand off, so she could inspect it again before dressing it, “Or you’ll keep injuring yourself. It’s not too deep, we’ll be okay with a bandaid.”

Baekhyun didn’t speak as he let his mother fuss over him. He thought about all the advice he was given today. Play it off as a joke if Kyungsoo took it badly, or just get it out to clear his mind which didn’t even want to do the normal functions it was designed for. His mother was right, if he didn’t do something he’d keep injuring himself.

“I will.”

***

Baekhyun had fidgeted so much during the day in school that one teacher suggested tying his hands to the desk with the very bracelet he’d been playing with, just so he’d stop moving. He had apologised profusely for his behaviour but he was having a very hard time controlling it today. His brain may have been buzzing with all sorts of fake conversations and scenarios that could take place when he confronted Kyungsoo, that it seemed to elevate the amount of electrical signals his brain sent to his muscles.

He hadn’t been able to so much as look at Kyungsoo today, he felt that if he did his resolve might crumble and he wouldn’t go through with the confrontation. He informed his friends of what he was going to do, without much detail, earlier in the day. Jongdae had vowed to keep a sneaky eye on Kyungsoo for any reactions, but he just shrugged at him once the day was over and they left the room.

Since they had the whole room to themselves today, Baekhyun wasn’t afraid of being overheard by any other classmates. It was the best and only time to do it and when they sat together to begin studying, Baekhyun cracked after about two minutes of silence.

“Okay Kyungsoo,” Baekhyun started slamming his hands firmly down on the desk, over Kyungsoo’s notes so that he’d have no choice but to look at him, “We need to talk.” Kyungsoo bit the inside of his cheek and Baekhyun knew he wasn’t going to be easy to deal with.

“Why?” If Baekhyun didn’t know him better, he’d have thought he was being difficult, but he recognised this behaviour as defensive, like he was protecting himself. It was as if he knew this conversation was coming as well, but also didn’t want to deal with it.

“Why?” Baekhyun repeated, hoping that it conveyed all of the frustration and confusion he’d been feeling, “Because _this_ ” he gestured to both of them, “is bullshit, that’s why!”

“If that’s how you feel…” Kyungsoo said trying to be aloof, but Baekhyun could see him clenching his jaw. Baekhyun felt like flipping the desk just to get a different reaction from him, but he knew he had to press on.

“If that’s how I feel? How do you feel?” He asked with a touch of desperation in his tone. Something which Kyungsoo definitely picked up on, as he was now making cautious eye contact, “Talk to me Kyungsoo.” He finished, a lot gentler than he started.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Kyungsoo’s voice was small, almost the same voice he used when his parents were making fun of him. It sounded like he was hurt, lost or even vulnerable.

“I want you to be honest with me, I want you to let me in.” Baekhyun pleaded, “I think, I’ve proved to you that I like you. You can’t deny that I like you, but I have no idea how you feel about me… is this just a game? Are you lonely? Are you just using me because I’m easy?”

“No! I’d never do that, how could you think that?”

“How else am I supposed to think?” Baekhyun slumped forwards a bit, he took a moment before raising his head to look him in the eye again. “One minute you’re all over me and the next minute you won’t even look at me?”

Kyungsoo was the vision of contrite, “I’m sorry,” He choked a little but Baekhyun wasn’t going to let him get away with an apology. If he truly felt sorry then he was going to damn well tell him _why_ he acted the way that he did.

“I don’t know what that even means.” Baekhyun stood up now, using one hand to rub the bottom half of his face, Kyungsoo sent him a confused look, “Sorry you got involved with me? Sorry you used me? Sorry you don’t like me the way I like you?”

It took several moments for Kyungsoo to respond. He looked like he took a few breaths to speak, but nothing came out, until finally, “I don’t understand why you like me.”

Baekhyun stopped himself from laughing bitterly out loud. The reason was starting to become so clear before his eyes and he silently berated himself for missing it until now. Kyungsoo didn’t put himself out for anyone but it _wasn’t_ because he didn’t care. Like Baekhyun had already predicted, it was an act of self preservation for him. If he didn’t try in school, no one would expect top grades off him, if he didn’t try to stand up to his parents he couldn’t disappoint them any more, if he didn’t admit his feelings to Baekhyun he couldn’t get his heart broken.

It was all so simple, so obvious. So heartbreaking, but Baekhyun needed to hear him say it before he could do anything.

“From the moment we met, you had my attention. You’re good looking, you’re funny, you’re weird in the best way…” Kyungsoo’s bottom lashes were starting to look a little dewy, “You’re hard to handle sometimes but hey, so am I. That’s just life. That’s just _humanity_.” Kyungsoo’s mind set bothered Baekhyun, he _was_ smart, he wan’t his brother, but who cared? He wasn’t the mean loner Jongdae and Chanyeol though he was either, he was soft and funny and caring. “You’re better than you give yourself credit for.”

Do Kyungsoo was a treasure, and only Baekhyun was taking notice.

“So… you don’t hate me? You’re not… disappointed?”

Baekhyun sat on the chair he'd just vacated so that he could get on Kyungsoo’s eye level. He’d never tried to put so emotion into one look, but he did hope Kyungsoo was picking up on his sincerity.

“The only way you can disappoint me is by lying to me.” He told him, “So do me a favour, and don’t lie to me. Just be honest even if you think its going to hurt me… because nothing can be worse than hearing you lie.”

It was a tense couple of moments as they looked at each other. Baekhyun wanted to keep himself open, honest and welcoming. Anything Kyungsoo wanted to say to him, he’d be able to take it. Kyungsoo seemed to be searching for a hint of deceit, anything that may give away Baekhyun was playing a game with him, or leading him to imminent emotional peril.

“Okay… the truth?” Kyungsoo breathed out, still rather unsurely. Baekhyun offered a genuine encouraging smile, “I- I don’t know what I am. I like you, I feel things for you but I- I-” Kyungsoo couldn’t hold his gaze for long, but that small admission swelled Baekhyun’s heart to three times its size.

“You don’t have to put a name to it you know.” Baekhyun reassured, “You can just be ’Kyungsoo’ and not _‘that gay kid’_ or _‘that bi kid’_ or whatever. I know its rich coming from me, because I haven’t told many people about my preference but I don’t need them to know my personal business. Don’t let other people decide who you are.”

“That sounds like something you picked up from a movie,” Kyungsoo said cracking a little smile.

Baekhyun hit him lightly on the arm, smiling himself, “I know, but I mean it.”

“Labels are stupid.” Kyungsoo lamented, digging his fingers into his eyes and he leaned forwards to rest his elbows on the desk. It was going to take a little more than just Baekhyun to say _‘everything is okay’_ for him to come round to the idea he liked another boy. Though, Baekhyun felt like the days for labelling themselves were over, they liked each other and who the hell gave a crap?

“So are exams,” Baekhyun grinned lightening the mood with one of Kyungsoo’s favourite phrases. Kyungsoo snorted and dropped his hands.

“And so are exams,” Kyungsoo echoed, he took a moment to regard Baekhyun closely, “Can I be honest with you again?”

“Yes, please.”

“I don’t want to kiss anyone but you. I can’t think of anyone else but you… I- fuck, I really like you.” Kyungsoo bit down on his lip to stop the flow of words, Baekhyun could tell he meant every single one of them though, as the earnest look in his eyes was hard to fake.

“That is…” Baekhyun began a little teasingly, “perfectly normal.” Kyungsoo aimed a smack to his injured hand, which Baekhyun dodged expertly.

“Is it normal that I…” Kyungsoo caught himself and stopped mid sentence, deciding that his shoes were far more important to pay attention to.

“That you what?” Baekhyun prompted, touching his hand lightly. 

“That I don’t _just_ want you to kiss me…” Kyungsoo took a deep breath, “That I want more.” Kyungsoo was watching him with such intensity now, something that spoke of both apprehension and want that was making it hard to formulate sentences.

“I’d say that’s normal too…”

“Seriously, I can’t- I can’t stop thinking about you- erm-” Kyungsoo looked away again.

“Whatever it is, I’m not going to laugh.” Baekhyun urged, eager to find out what exactly was causing him to blush.

“I can’t stop thinking about you _fucking_ me.” Kyungsoo whispered. His cheeks began to glow a little deeper at his confession, still scanning Baekhyun closely in case he decided to start laughing at him and making a song and dance about how he was only kidding.

“Oh,” Baekhyun blinked. He needed to take a moment to rid himself of the dazed feeling he’d just acquired from all of his blood rushing southwards. He silently thanked the lord he was sat down. “You know… sex _could_ kill you.”

“Is that your way of telling me you don’t want to…?” Kyungsoo said, but Baekhyun was standing up taking hold of Kyungsoo’s hands as he did so he’d follow, he watched Kyungsoo’s Adam’s apple bob as he moved in closer.

Kyungsoo wasn’t stopping him, becoming pliant in Baekhyun’s hold and falling deathly silent. Baekhyun could almost see his own reflection in Kyungsoo’s deep brown eyes, getting ever darker.

“If you think about what your body goes through when you have sex, it makes sense,” Baekhyun fitted his hands against Kyungsoo’s waist, rubbing slow circles into the material as he talked, “Your pupils dilate, your breathing becomes shallow,” he stopped massaging his waist in order to slowly move his hands southwards, loving how Kyungsoo was already displaying each symptom as he spoke.

“Your core temperature rises and your heart rate skyrockets,” His hands found their way over Kyungsoo’s bottom, teasingly slowly so his eyes fluttered shut for a moment, “then your brain fires electrical impulses all over and your muscles spasm and tense like you’re lifting three times your body weight.” Baekhyun leaned in so that his lips brushed Kyungsoo’s lightly as he spoke in a whisper, “It’s messy, it’s ugly and it’s violent,” He squeezed Kyungsoo’s ass so hard he elicited a little shocked noise from his throat, “But its _so. Damn. Fun_.”

As he finished the last word of his little lecture, Kyungsoo growled with want as he locked their lips together. Baekhyun couldn’t help the victorious grin spread across his face as Kyungsoo kissed him, though he managed to get himself together and kiss him back properly. Leaning forwards as Kyungsoo grabbed a handful of his perfectly styled hair, Baekhyun groaned and tightened his grip on his backside, pulling him flush against him.

Feeling like he needed some stability, Baekhyun dipped down ever so slightly to lift Kyungsoo onto the desk behind him, paying no mind to the books that fell to the floor as his now unoccupied hands cleared the space. Baekhyun grabbed Kyungsoo’s thighs for anchorage, so that he wouldn’t completely topple onto him.

The noises Kyungsoo made when he kissed were sexy to say the least, for someone who didn’t vocalise much, he was certainly letting Baekhyun know just how much he was enjoying it. Especially when Baekhyun dragged him forward again so that their nether regions were pressed together. Kyungsoo gasped with a deep “Oh” slipping past his lips.

Kyungsoo let go of Baekhyun’s hair to pull on his loose tie, and drag him forwards even more, gaining another groan of pleasure the more friction their cocks were getting. Even Baekhyun was finding it a little difficult to breathe every time it happened, it seemed like their kissing session was over with as they experimentally rolled their hips into each other, testing out just how _good_ it felt without the smog of uncertainty hanging over them. Baekhyun wasn’t going to let any time go to waste, he removed his hands from Kyungsoo’s thighs, moving onto his belt and undoing it in record time.

Catching up, Kyungsoo undid his tie and started to undo the buttons of his shirt to help speed the process along and before Baekhyun knew it, it was confronted with Kyungsoo’s bare torso for all his drooling pleasure. Not caring about Kyungsoo’s whine of impatience, Baekhyun kissed him hard for the second time.

“Take off your shoes,” He instructed as his hands made his way down to one of Kyungsoo’s nipples. He pushed the material of his shirt out of the way so he’d have a clear shot to it. Kyungsoo gasped and arched up into the touch, leaning back on one hand so he wouldn’t fall. Baekhyun grinned again, he must have sensitive nipples, he’d make sure to remember that in the future. Kyungsoo writhed a little at the touch, breath hitching as he still scrambled to get his shoes off with his feet.

Baekhyun decided to let up on him pulling his hands back, since he was anxious to get right to it, there was something about Kyungsoo that erased all of his patience. Baekhyun moved his hands back down to Kyungsoo’s undone trousers. He looked him in the eye, just for clarification that he could take them off.

“Take them off,” Kyungsoo permitted and Baekhyun didn’t need telling twice, pulling them off with quick efficiency. Baekhyun had to take a moment to appreciate Kyungsoo beneath him, he was breathtaking with his eyes blown and dark hair messily falling into his face. He could hear his breathing becoming more laboured as Baekhyun’s hand wandered. Kyungsoo let his eyes fall closed when Baekhyun palmed him through his boxers, his eyebrows pulled up in the middle as he bit down on his lip. He whimpered sounding pained, Baekhyun knew he was teasing him a little too much.

Once Kyungsoo was exposed it knocked all the air out of Baekhyun’s lungs. He’d felt Kyungsoo growing harder beneath his palms before, but he was not expecting him to be so well endowed. Baekhyun’s breath stuttered as he took Kyungsoo in his hands and started to stroke him to full hardness. Kyungsoo let out the loudest moan yet, falling back onto his elbows because he could no longer hold himself up.

Baekhyun was finding it hard to keep his composure as he teased Kyungsoo, he couldn’t help himself though, because Kyungsoo was making all the sexiest noises and it was filling Baekhyun to the brim with excitement.

“Why are you torturing me?” Kyungsoo’s voice was desperate and breathy, and his dark eyebrows were pulled up in the middle. Baekhyun huffed out a little laugh.

“I’m sorry, I’m just really enjoying this,” Baekhyun answered finally pulling his hand away. As much as Kyungsoo may have been impatient, he did make a small whine of displeasure as Baekhyun let him go. “Don’t worry, I’m getting protection.”

“You carry a condom around with you?”

“In my wallet, yeah.”

“Do you always plan on having sex when you’re out and about?”

“No, but it hurts less to come prepared.” Baekhyun admitted but Kyungsoo’s face had gone white.

“Oh… oh god-”

“Hey, don’t worry. Just relax, I’ll be gentle.” Baekhyun reassured, and Kyungsoo nodded still looking a mix between apprehensive and extremely aroused. Baekhyun fished the condom out of his wallet and placed it on the desk Kyungsoo was on, hovering around anxiously.

“We- we don’t have anything to make this easier,” Kyungsoo pointed out. It was the exact thought that had crossed Baekhyun’s mind, what on earth would they use for lubricant in a school? In a classroom that wasn’t designed to house such things. Baekhyun drummed his fingers against his thighs in both an act of anxiety and because he just couldn’t control it.

He had an idea. Leaving Kyungsoo, he scrambled over to their teachers desk. Kyungsoo watched him with dark eyes, as he tried the drawers.

“It’s worth a shot,” Baekhyun said, opening each draw and shoving things like staplers and extra pencils aside. He rummaged in all of the open drawers of the desk but came up short, frustrated he growled into the air, until he heard Kyungsoo clear his throat. Baekhyun popped up from behind the desk.

“Would this work?” He asked, holding up a small tub of vaseline and wiggling around for emphasis. The sight of Kyungsoo, waiting for him with a tub of vaseline couldn’t have been sexier, and Baekhyun had to undo his belt and zipper as he strode back over to him. Kyungsoo sat up once he reached him again and immediately pushed his palm onto Baekhyun’s now throbbing dick.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” He inhaled deeply through his nose. It felt so, _so_ good to have Kyungsoo’s hands finally on him.

“You’re-” Kyungsoo gulped, “ _really hard_ ” The last words came out breathless and Baekhyun dipped down to capture his lips again quickly to soothe him. 

“Do you trust me?” Baekhyun whispered into his lips, Kyungsoo nodded slightly, humming affirmation as their mouths fit together. It felt like heaven, kissing Kyungsoo as his hands played with him, popping the buttons of his boxers and pulling him out. Baekhyun broke away and grabbed the vaseline from Kyungsoo’s other hand, pushing him back down onto the desk so that he was lying on his back.

Baekhyun reached for the condom and was tearing it open in one swift motion, all the while with his eyes still fixed to Kyungsoo’s. Kyungsoo was lying in front of him, shirt open and exposing his chest, dick lying hard and throbbing against the lower half of his tummy, legs hooked around his hip with only his socks on. Baekhyun felt dizzy again with all the blood pumping down to his arousal but he managed to roll the condom on with no problems.

Kyungsoo’s breathing picked up when Baekhyun popped the lid off the vaseline tub, covering only one finger with a generous amount of the vaseline. As his cold fingers touched Kyungsoo, the boy jumped and gasped, “Oh.”

“Relax, it won’t be so bad.” Kyungsoo nodded and winced as Baekhyun began, though the gentle movements of his fingers soon had Kyungsoo’s jaw going slack and he was asking for another. The preparation didn’t take as long as Baekhyun would have imagined, he tried to stretch Kyungsoo as much as possible to make it easier but his dick was begging for some sort of friction, especially when Kyungsoo announced he thought he was ready.

Kyungsoo’s thighs shook as he waited for Baekhyun to slick himself up and get into position. Taking some action, Baekhyun grabbed his left leg and hoisted it over his shoulder, “Lie on your side,” he told him, Kyungsoo rolled so his position was more comfortable, his right leg resting against the desk and his left being held up by Baekhyun. “You ready?” Kyungsoo just nodded vigorously.

Slowly taking a deep breath himself to calm his own nerves, Baekhyun breached him. He hated the hard grimace that decorated Kyungsoo’s face, he watched his hands curl into fists because of the pain, so he attempted to soothe him by stroking his thigh.

He tried to be gentle, but his eyes were starting to roll back into his head the deeper he went. Letting out his own desperate moan once he’d filled Kyungsoo up. It was a tense moment, Baekhyun bit his lip as he waited for Kyungsoo to stop breathing heavily. 

“I’ll go slow,” Baekhyun said stroking the thigh that was over his shoulder. Kyungsoo nodded again and Baekhyun pulled back a fraction, before pushing back in. “Ah!” He couldn’t help the noise, he’d never been able to keep himself quiet when he played with himself, so he didn’t expect to be silent now. He just hoped to the gods that no one would walk past their classroom whilst they were in the middle of it.

His movements were shallow, but he groaned in pleasure each time he moved. Soon Kyungsoo had began to cry out softly, with a deep blush decorating his chest; which Baekhyun took that as his queue to pick up the pace. More noises spilled out of his own mouth against his will, but it felt so good he hardly had the capacity to care.

He grasped the thigh that was thrown over his shoulder a little more firmly taking purchase lower down so he could keep himself upright, his long fingers digging into the soft flesh as he thrust forward with more vigour, rattling the table beneath them. He felt his own blush spread across his cheeks and the tips of his ears, feeling so full of all sorts of emotions his heart could explode.

Kyungsoo couldn’t seem to keep quiet either, whispering quiet expletives every so often that spurred Baekhyun on. The sound of the desk scratching across the floor was lost to the sharp breaths, urgent moans and sounds of sex. If _anyone_ heard the racket they were making at this moment, they would both surely be expelled.

Baekhyun lasted a laughably short amount of time, all things considered. Though he never professed to be a God in bed. He was so overwhelmed with the hormones coursing through his body and having Kyungsoo on a _desk_ in the middle of an empty classroom like something straight out of a porn flick… he was never going to last for more than a few minutes. Kyungsoo howled as Baekhyun’s toes curled in his shoes as he came, thrusting wildly until he came down from his high, just in time to see Kyungsoo’s orgasm hit him.

Kyungsoo’s orgasm face was the absolute best thing Baekhyun had seen in his life, he vaguely wished he’d filmed it. Sadly, Kyungsoo had caused quite a mess and as soon as his muscles were done spasming and contracting, he became dead weight and Baekhyun wobbled to try and keep hold of him.

“Whoa,” Baekhyun said, trying to steady him.

“Sorry,” Kyungsoo said trying to catch his breath, he moved gingerly as Baekhyun pulled out of him. His face scrunched up in disgust at the feeling and the fact he now had to clean himself up, Baekhyun chuckled and remembered Chanyeol kept tissues in his desk for the hay fever seasons. He strolled over to the desk in question and opened it.

“Here,” He offered Kyungsoo the packet of tissues, who took them with a grateful smile. Now though Baekhyun was faced with trying to take this damned condom off and hide it somewhere, he didn’t really fancy carrying it around with him.

“I’m glad we weren’t caught.” Kyungsoo finally said after he’d cleaned himself up and located all of his items of clothing, He was pulling on his trousers, still with his shirt unbuttoned, he looked incredible with the high colour on his cheeks and chest.

“Me too,” Baekhyun agreed, before he could stop himself he asked, “Why did you always shut me out?” He sat heavily on a chair that was close to him, needing to take the time to recover.

Kyungsoo took his time buttoning up his shirt before he spoke, “Scared, I think.”

“Hmm,” Baekhyun kind of thought that would be the end of the conversation, having known Kyungsoo for a while now he was aware that if the other boy wanted to end a talk he’d give a short answer.

However, that was not the case as Kyungsoo took a seat opposite him. “I mean… I disappoint everyone, my parents, my brother, my teachers… but the thought of disappointing you… that actually scared me.” Baekhyun met his eyes again, feeling touched by the confession. He smiled as warmly as he could, wanting nothing more than to cuddle the life out of him because his heart was fit to burst.

He decided to throw caution to the wind and scoop Kyungsoo up from his chair and into a massive bear-hug, which Kyungsoo melted into, “Well I can tell you now… I am _not_ disappointed.” Baekhyun whispered into his hair.

“You’re just saying that to get into my pants again,” He heard Kyungsoo mumble into his shirt as he laughed.

***

Exam time was upon them. One whole day of none stop examinations and Baekhyun was pulling his hair out. Not just for himself, he had a new sense of worry reserved only for Kyungsoo even though the other boy didn’t seem to be freaking out at all. That was just his way, he didn’t freak out and Baekhyun admired that about him.

Though, just before they were due to undertake exam conditions, he couldn’t see him anywhere.

“I need to find Kyungsoo,” he said to Chanyeol and Jongdae and before they could reply he’d ran off in search of him. He didn’t have to look far, he found Kyungsoo behind the administration building lighting up a cigarette with shaky hands.

“Kyungsoo? You’re smoking?” Kyungsoo looked up, startled.

“I only smoke when I’m really nervous…” He explained, looking apologetic, “I’m sorry…”

“Hey. Don’t be sorry.” Baekhyun grabbed the cigarette off him and put it out on the wall. He took the packet from his hand and put it back in, much to Kyungsoo’s confusion. Once he’d handed them back and he’d put them in his pocket, Baekhyun cupped his face in both of his hands.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to de-stress you a different way, okay?”

“Okay?” Baekhyun leaned in and kissed him softly, pressing their lips together and moving slowly but not sensually. It was just a soft, reassuring kiss that hopefully was going to keep the boy calm. Baekhyun pressed his forehead against Kyungsoo’s when he pulled away.

“You can do this. You know it. You don’t need to worry about a thing.” Honestly, Baekhyun was touched by how far he’d come, when they met Kyungsoo didn’t care about how well he’d do with these exams, and now after he’d come over to cram with him in the days leading up to the exam, Kyungsoo was resorting to cigarettes to take the edge off.

Baekhyun couldn’t be more proud of him.

“You have a lot of faith in me.” Kyungsoo’s voice shook as he spoke, trying to hide it in laughter.

“I do, but you know what? Even if you fail, it’ll be okay, because you tried.” It sounded like Kyungsoo was holding back tears as he choked on the air, Baekhyun gave him a reassuring smile, “Now lets go kick this exams ass, okay?”

***

Junmyeon was throwing another party for the senior class the weekend after the exams. Baekhyun turned up early again to help him set up and Junmyeon was gushing at him, saying how much he regretted not thinking of the tutoring program earlier in his school career, to which Baekhyun gently reminded him that it didn’t much matter now.

“You really helped Kyungsoo too, I’ve never seen him so focused.” They were outside on Junmyeon’s spacious decking, overlooking the hills. Baekhyun vaguely remembered doing this himself a few months previous, before he’d fallen asleep and missed the whole party.

“He’s a good guy.” Baekhyun admitted with a grin.

“Are you talking about me?” The pair of them spun around to find Kyungsoo in the doorway, looking extremely handsome. It seemed like he’d been taking styling tips from Baekhyun because his hair was pushed back from his face, Baekhyun let out a long breath as he joined them.

“Only good things!” Baekhyun beamed, throwing his arm across Kyungsoo’s shoulders. “Isn’t that right Junmyeon?”

“Its true,” Junmyeon affirmed, amused smile gracing his handsome face at the way Baekhyun had draped himself all over Kyungsoo and the fact that he hadn’t shied away from the touch. “You’re good friends now, it seems.” He noted.

“Yeah, all that means is that I can hit him whenever he moves too much. Which is all the time, its a win win.” Kyungsoo told him and Baekhyun removed his arm in favour of giving him a back hug instead. Junmyeon still said nothing but he was trying very hard not to all out beam at the two of them being so close.

“I see how that would benefit both of you.” 

“You’re both making fun of me,” Baekhyun pouted resting his chin on Kyungsoo’s shoulder.

“Would I do that?” Kyungsoo raised a hand to his chest, Baekhyun snorted and dug his fingers into Kyungsoo’s waist at the most ticklish point. Kyungsoo shied away, trying to hit him in the arms or break his fingers; but with the biggest smile gracing his lips.

Later on, as the party got started Baekhyun was reluctant to let Kyungsoo leave his sight. He followed him everywhere, much to Kyungsoo’s feigned annoyance. “If you don’t leave me alone people will think something is going on.” He hissed, though he was trying to hide his smile very obviously.

“But there _is_ something going on,” Baekhyun grinned. His inhibitions were thrown out the window tonight, not because he’d been drinking, but more because he now didn’t give a fuck who knew about him being himself. He’d never see half of these people again in his life, so what did it matter if they thought badly of him? Or were disgusted or disappointed by it? The only people who mattered were the ones who already knew.

“People will _talk_ Byun Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo lowered his voice so anyone passing wouldn’t hear him. He took a small sip from the drink Baekhyun had made him earlier and grimaced at the amount of alcohol in it.

“Do you care if they talk?” Kyungsoo’s eyes went a little wide at the question but he regained his composure quickly.

“How much have you had to drink? Hm? Time to stop I think.” Kyungsoo took Baekhyun’s cup off him and placed both of their drinks on an empty countertop. Baekhyun let him, though still determined to get an answer from him, so he wasn’t going to let up. He looked into Kyungsoo’s eyes seriously.

“Do you care?” He asked again. Kyungsoo glanced around at their, soon to be, ex classmates. It was as though he were weighing up the pros and cons of being found out for his preference, but he’d agreed with Baekhyun about him not having to slap a huge label onto himself when they’d talked about it amidst their cramming sessions.

“Well, no I guess not-” Baekhyun took his chance, he cut him off mid sentence by capturing his lips in a sweet and slow kiss. Baekhyun could hear the collective shock from their immediate surroundings, some people gasped and some whooped, but all Baekhyun wanted to focus on was the warmth of Kyungsoo’s mouth. He circled Kyungsoo in his arms, securing them around his waist and pulling him closer. Kyungsoo broke away to catch his breath, taking a cursory look at the faces around him.

“Jeez guys, get a room.” Jongdae called as he passed by, clapping Baekhyun on the back as he went. Baekhyun grinned at him and took in some of the shocked faces around the room, Jiyeon, the girl who Chanyeol had brought last time looked positively dumbfounded. The weirdest thing was, a lot of the people in the room were starting to come round, nodding their heads as if this scene made more sense.

“Doesn’t look like many people are talking.” Baekhyun observed redirecting his gaze back to Kyungsoo’s.

“It doesn’t seem like they are,” Kyungsoo agreed looking around and letting out a little relieved sigh as he played idly with the strings of Baekhyun’s hoodie. It did seem that the initial shock of watching the pair of them kiss had died off into the background as someone announced they’d brought a keg of beer with them, and they should play a huge game of beer pong in the garden.

Amongst the chaos that ensued shortly after, Chanyeol saddled up to the pair of them and hissed out the side of his mouth, “Junmyeon’s spare room is great if you guys want to get in there before anyone else does.” And he ran off to join Jongdae in causing an ever bigger commotion outside.

“Do you want to?” No sooner had the question left his lips was he met with Kyungsoo kissing him roughly, hands all up in his hair. “I take that as a yes,” he gasped out after they’d pulled apart to catch their breath again. Using the noise as a cover, Baekhyun grabbed Kyungsoo’s hand and led him out of the room and up the stairs.

It didn’t take long for them to find the room Chanyeol was talking about, thankfully it was located on the far side of the house, away from most of the main areas people would use. Baekhyun pulled a willing Kyungsoo in with him and shut the door firmly.

“You’ve got a condom, right?” Kyungsoo managed to ask before Baekhyun’s lips were on him again, his hands found the hem of his shirt and pulled it swiftly over his head just as Kyungsoo’s hands pushed at his hoodie.

“Yeah,” Baekhyun shucked away the jacket and tore his shirt off after, ready to get as much skin on skin contact as he could. They kissed wildly as they slowly backed up to where the bed was located, hurriedly ripping items of clothing off as fast as they could whilst still trying to maintain contact. Baekhyun wasted no time in kissing Kyungsoo down the length of his neck, stopping at each mole on the way to kiss and lick at it. Making sure he played a little with his nipples, which had him crying out and arching his back again; down further until he was exactly where he wanted to be.

“Are you going to-?” Kyungsoo’s eyes had gone impossibly wide and Baekhyun couldn’t help but find it adorable.

“Yep.” He answered simply.

“Oh… _ahh!_ ” Baekhyun hardly let him say another word before he attached his mouth to Kyungsoo’s dick. He wasn’t super experienced at giving head, he probably wasn’t as good as he could have been, a bit sloppy and without skill but Kyungsoo seemed to love it. “I’m gonna come if you keep doing that!” Kyungsoo said shakily, pushing at his shoulder to make him stop.

“Right, right, right.” Baekhyun blindly felt around for his jeans, which housed the lube and condom he had definitely remembered to bring just in case this scenario did pan out. His prep was a little faster as well, as the pair of them were very aware _anyone_ could come barging in at any second. Kyungsoo was moaning out his name and writhing again very quickly, which was a sure indication that they should be getting right to it.

“I wanna be on top.” Kyungsoo breathed after another round of messy kissing, Baekhyun’s heart stilled.

“But I just prepped you…” 

“No, stupid, I want to _ride_ you.” It took Baekhyun by such surprise his dick gave a particularly hard twitch, nearly causing him to come before he’d even been touched. Kyungsoo was really something when he wanted to be.

“Okay,” He agreed, taking up the position of lying back against the pillows. Kyungsoo rolled the condom on for him, meeting his eyes with a devilish sort of look and Baekhyun’s cock reacted _again_. Finally, Kyungsoo climbed aboard and even positioned Baekhyun himself, one last look of consent and Kyungsoo was lowering himself down.

Baekhyun suspected the burn didn’t get any easier, waiting patiently by rubbing circles into his thighs again, but then Kyungsoo was rocking forward ever so slightly and he felt dizzier than he had done in the classroom. It looked like this position was favourable to Kyungsoo too because he was making some of the most lewd noises Baekhyun had ever heard. It got out of hand far too soon, one minute Kyungsoo was rolling his hips gently and the next Baekhyun had to grab him by the soft part of his backside just to keep up with him. Not being able to move fast enough, Baekhyun planted his feet beneath them and bucked up hard and fast, he remembered to use one hand to bring Kyungsoo to orgasm around the same time he was feeling the coil tighten in his stomach.

Both of them cried out far too loudly when their orgasms hit them with full force. It was different to their classroom sex, probably because of the position or the copious amount of skin to skin contact but Baekhyun’s toes curled all the same. Kyungsoo collapsed next to Baekhyun on the spacious bed, breathing hard as though he’d just ran a marathon.

“Wow,” 

“Wow,” Baekhyun echoed. It took them a long time for their hearts to calm down, by that time Baekhyun had thought he’d definitely need to shower, but Kyungsoo had come prepared with something of his own. He pulled out a travel-sized packet of wet wipes so Baekhyun didn’t have to move. This time he even helped with the condom situation, thankfully Junmyeon’s guest bedroom had a handy bin underneath the end table so they both collapsed back into their original positions.

“I’m sleepy now,” Kyungsoo mumbled.

“Me too.”

“Do you want to go back to the party?”

“No.”

“Me neither.” 

Later on, when the sounds of the party had long since died away, Baekhyun woke up to a smooth back and a mess of dark hair in his eye line. He snuggled himself forward so that he and Kyungsoo were closer, a small smile of content on his lips as he thought that he really didn’t mind missing the party if it meant he got to miss it with Kyungsoo.

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone IS of age in this fic, I know Kyungsoo is younger IRL but for the purpose of this work they are all of age. And in case anyone was confused, nineteen in Korea is international eighteen years old and yeah you know all that.
> 
> If anyone wants to ask me a question you can pop along and drop me a line on my CC! https://curiouscat.me/jkl_401


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